


E O Mai

by stover



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternative Universe — Modern Setting, Angst, Depression, Fisherman!Keith, Heavy Angst, Homelessness, Korean!Keith, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Mermaid Magic, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Social Anxiety, literary fiction, mermaid!lance, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/pseuds/stover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s homeless and poor and gay and illegally sells fish to get by, and that’s how he comes upon a dead man in his net. Only, it’s not a dead man, because this ‘man’ has the legs of a fish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead Man's Float

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raylou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raylou/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stupid, he tells himself angrily, you stupid dumb fuck; he’s angry at himself now because he’s out of bait and there’s probably nothing in his net because who would stay long after they’ve had their fill? No one, that’s who.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIND FICMIX ON 8TRACKS [HERE](http://8tracks.com/aestover91/e-o-mai).

> _Is this the real life?_  
>  _Is this just fantasy?_  
>  _Caught in a landslide_  
>  _No escape from reality_  
>  _Open your eyes_  
>  _Look up to the skies and see_  
>  _I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy_  
>  **Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)**

 

 

 

 _The honor of your presence  
_ _is requested at the marriage of_

 _Takashi Shirogane_  
_ &  
Allura Altena_

 _Saturday, the twenty-fifth of June_  
_two thousand sixteen_  
_at half past six in the evening_

 _The Ebell of Los Angeles_ **(** **1)  
** _743 S Lucerne Blvd  
_ _Los Angeles, CA, 90005_

 _Reception to immediately follow_ **(** **2)**

**\---**

Keith re-reads the invitation as soon as he wakes. It is the seventh time he does this this week, and for the seventh time he stands by the window to read. Sunlight does _not_ stream through the window blinds. There are no blinds at the window. The streaked panes lie bare in their wooden holds, rattling ever so slightly with each breeze that batters by. The storm is long gone, but the sky is heavy still, and black.

The sun will not rise for another two hours.

Still, he has woken. Still, he reads.

 _“The honor of your presence is requested at the marriage of Takashi Shirogane & Allura Altena_— _”_ Here, he stops reading. Here, he starts again, from the beginning.

_“The honor of your presence is requested at the marriage of Takashi Shirogane &—” _

He stops again, but this time, he cannot go back and start over. There is no starting over. There never was.

He sets the invitation down. It stands beside a clock that somehow still works even though he threw it against the wall. Look! Over there, under the wall calendar to his left _—_ there was the dent. It was still there. Sometimes, he thinks there are rats outside that try to gnaw the rest of the way through. He hasn’t found any yet, but he’s sure he will soon. There are always rats around.

He leaves the desk, turning away from the mess of paper to the mess of sheets and clothes on the cold floor. His futon needs to be washed. His clothes are scattered. He doesn’t know where his socks are, and the one shirt he has right now has a hole. He needs another one. He also needs ice. For that, he needs to leave _—_ he needs to _go out._

Today is a good day to go out, he feels. Or rather, that is what he tells himself, that he _feels_ today is a good day regardless of what a good day is supposed to be; because somewhere, he once read or heard (or was it both?) that telling yourself “today is a good day!” will somehow shove a hot coal in the mouth of the demon whispering in your ear about all the ways “today” could go bad. He thinks that’s a crock load of shit, but sometimes — and he wants to emphasize that it really is _some_ times _—_ it works.

And today, it will work.

That’s what he tells himself.

He still can’t find his socks, but he knows where his shoes are. They’re in the back corner, by the desk, and he grabs them and stuffs them into a drawstring bag he’s picked up somewhere on the beach some time ago. “COMIC CON 2013” it says in thick black font, each word a new line across the front of the bag **(** **3)**. He throws it on his back, then rolls up the musty futon and kicks it against the wall underneath his desk.

He opens the front door; it’s the only door he’s got and it creaks loud and tinny in greeting. The air is humid, but it blows coolly over his sweaty face. There is nothing he sees but rocks _—_ big and black and jagged, wrapping around the abandoned shack he’s made un-abandoned over the years and hiding him away, tucking him neatly inside a junkyard cove the beach town forgot about for years. California does that, sometimes. It forgets what’s there and just chases after something else. Then again, so does everybody. Right?

He rubs his hands with wet sand, feeling the coarse grains stick wetly against the palms of his hands and it feels almost like he’s wearing a new skin, except this one falls apart as the wind blows and it dries out. He starts walking, striding along the rocky cliffs until he gets to that one rock that juts out at the weirdest angle. From there, he takes hold of the prop and pulls himself up, taking care to step in the right places as he hauls himself up and over the top of that first rock and carefully stretching over the jagged tip. After that, it’s a smooth slide down, as smooth as granite can be, and he barely feels the rough scrapes against his feet, the skin thick with calluses.

He lands on the last bed of granite, the one that almost feels like sandstone because of how much the sand has whipped against it, and stands on it for a while, looking out at a white beach and black waves and a rumbling sky. From where he stands, he can spot the boardwalk that used to be a highway until someone rich enough rerouted the entire area. It’s not clear now, but the boardwalk was once lined with corner shops and stalls and small eateries and everything else that was once there before gentrification came upon them like black mold. The only constant is _Brok’ Da Mout_ , a Hawaiian pub that somehow managed to keep its place within this fast-paced, ever-changing locale of Southern California. So like the owner it was; hospitable, genuine, consistent.

It’s for the owner that he needs the ice.

He jumps down from the cliffs. His feet sink into the sand, and for a moment, he lets the earth swallow him up to his ankles.

Then he starts to run.

 

* * *

  

It takes about 1.6 times more effort to run on sand than it does to run anywhere else. This, he’s learned from when he was in high school, when he joined the track team and the football team and the soccer team and every other team that ever asked him to come along. He can’t remember them all, and it doesn’t matter anyway. He quit each and every one, and stayed holed up in the attic that was his room trying to figure out how he was going to pay for college if his dad was doing the dead man’s float in space somewhere and his mom was shooting up all the time.

He doesn’t have either now. He’s scared to admit that he no longer cares, so for the record — _yes_ , he misses them; _yes_ , he wants them back. Except, he really, really doesn’t. He doesn’t think he’s wanted them back since he was fourteen. But fourteen was when he found someone else, someone _good_ , to hold him together. Fourteen was when he believed — truly believed — in _“today is a good day!”_

But he really needs ice and the sand is going, going, _gone_ , and he’s standing on the warm asphalt of a parking lot and he doesn’t have time anymore to think about that. He takes his shoes out of his bag and puts them on. It’s only when he’s stuffing his left foot into his shoe that he realizes he’s not wearing his shirt.

“Fuck,” he curses, the sound bitter and hard in his ears. “Fuck.”

He kicks his shoes off and carries them in his hands as he runs back.

 

* * *

  

Rolo is not behind the register, which makes things a little difficult. But he strives on difficult, his life has always been difficult; so, maybe, this didn’t make things difficult at all?

There is a pretty girl where Rolo is supposed to be, pale with sun-streaked hair and eyes glittering an alien purple (were those contacts?) and chewing gum as she reads a book he’s pretty sure can be used as a brick. The girl doesn’t seem to realize he’s not going to the register, that he’s not carrying anything but a sack of ice and an empty drawstring bag, that he’s not wearing socks, that his shirt has a hole in it and that he hasn’t washed his hair with soap since— since _when?_

He’s going to make a run for it. He’s going to run and he won’t come back until he knows Rolo has come back. _If_ Rolo comes back. Rolo might be gone for good, this time. That makes his insides churn because Rolo was how he even got here in the first place, and he doesn’t want to _lose_ someone, even if he and Rolo weren't that close; but maybe, though, maybe Rolo thought he was a friend, and this is the thought that makes his stomach flip because, _jesus_ , where is he gonna find someone else willing to ignore a bag of ice every now and then?

And then his stomach settles because no, he doesn’t need Rolo. He just needs the ice.

The girl at the register turns a page in that brick of a book and that’s when he runs, tearing through the dark in a burst of speed that makes his heart hammer in his chest.

Later, when he slumps against a streetlamp by the boardwalk, he wipes the sweat off his brow and laughs at the rawness in his throat and lungs because oh _man_ , oh god, oh _shit_ , that was crazy, that was so, _so_ crazy — _he_ was crazy.

“Shut up!” someone hisses from one of the apartments, and it just makes him laugh harder. “People are sleeping!”

“Fuck off!” he shouts back, laughter burning in his throat and lungs, and he gets this stupid, _stupid_ urge to throw something — _anything_ ; except there’s nothing around him but a bag of ice in his hands and he needs it; he needs this bag of ice.

He stops laughing so loud only when he sees a light flicking on, because shit, he can’t get in trouble, not now, not again. So he picks himself up and runs, his feet pounding heavily on the pavement as he cradles the bag of ice to his chest like maybe his mom did for him some years back.

What a sobering thought; it kills his laughter and shuts him up, and he’s back to being silent and brooding in the dark.

 

* * *

 

He carries the ice clenched in a fist, because his shirt is wet now and there’s no way else to carry it except put it in his bag. But he thinks maybe that’ll make it melt faster, so he doesn’t carry it that way and that’s why it’s just in his hand now. He walks down the empty boardwalk, watching the sky churn grey and black like it can’t make up its mind.

He starts to see the telltale color of a yellow lamplight that glows eerily in the dark. It shines above the shuttered front of _Brok’ Da Mout,_ and he wonders — What time is it? Is he running late?

The hollow sound of a window sliding open catches in his ears; he’s not even close to it yet, but that’s how dead it is out here. A well-known silhouette of a big man gets to the window. He can’t see, but he knows the big man is smiling kindly. “Keith!” the big man whispers, just loud enough for him to hear that yes, the big man _is_ smiling, “You out to get ono?”

“Maybe. I’ll see you later, yeah?” He starts jogging away, and he hears the big man calling after him:

“Hey, don’t forget to eat something!”

He waves him off.

He drinks two big gulps of air before he jams his shoes back into the bag and chases the wind across the sand.

 

* * *

 

The ice is dumped into a cooler, and he shoves that onto the boat he filched from some man who used to live way up at the lighthouse. The lighthouse isn’t there anymore, and the old man didn’t have family, so he just took the boat right after the funeral.

Nobody came looking for it, so he figures it’s alright.

_(_ _sometimes, he has dreams where the old man steals away the boat and dumps him in the middle of the Pacific_ _)_

Before he leaves, he remembers to text Pidge that he was out for the day; no protection detail, no courier work, no strong-arming, no nothing today, only for today. He tosses the pre-paid phone somewhere and lets it clatter noisily against the wooden floor of the shack.

The nets are in the boat and the oars are still good, so all that’s left to get is the bait. He checks the tide pools that litter the sunny stretch of the cove to his left and digs right in with both hands. There’s one of those sea plant things  **(** **4)** that he is careful to avoid because it can sting (at least, he thinks they can sting), and he’s lucky to find a collection of mussels gathered together along the sides of the rocks in the tide pool. He yanks them off and hurls them against rocks, picking out the meat from the shattered remains and holding them in tight fists. He goes back and forth like this, dumping the slimy meat on top of the ice in the cooler and going back to get more. He keeps it up for close to twenty minutes before he decides that’s enough and leaves some meat floating in the tide pool to attract scavengers — the bigger the bait, the bigger the fish, the bigger the price, and the faster he can do something this time around.

He quickly rinses his hands off in the water by the shore and jogs back uphill to dry sand. He toes his shoes off and kicks them away, running to the boat he’s got chained to an old dock, bleached white by the sun and sunken into the sand, attached to the shack. The tides at Black Rock never reach this far up the shore, but the old port denotes that they once did, and the knowledge is a haunting fact in the back of his head each time he closes his eyes to go to sleep at night.

He thinks about this as he unwinds the chain from a wooden post and snaps it free from the cleft of his boat. He gets to the stern and heaves and pushes and shoves the damn thing through the sand. It scrapes and hisses against the dry grains, getting louder and louder once it hits thick, wet sand; the sound screeches loudly in his ear but he no longer cares. The first few times he’s done this, he was paranoid somebody would find him and lock him up. But now, he knows nobody gives a damn because it’s the junkyard cove; nobody cares about the junkyard cove; the junkyard cove was the city alleyway, a gritty parking lot for a dumpster; it was the forgotten lane in the old country, all the sounds coming from it just a big ol’ waste uh time an’ effort in investigatin’ it. He was just that raccoon digging through the trash or that fox slinking around that rabbit hole. Nobody cared.

Finally, the bow gets to touch the water and he has to make sure the motor doesn’t break against the rocks that sit along the shoreline. He manages somehow, just like how he manages everything else, and, as cold water greedily gulps up his legs, the boat finally lifts and wades atop the shallow waves. He moves to port side, hands gripping the cleat as his feet start to slip and slide against slimy rocks resting along the berm.

When the water reaches his chest, he stops and hauls himself into the boat with a grunt. There is splashing and rocking and panting but he finally gets in, almost cutting his forehead against the sharp side on starboard when he slips his wet body inside. He lies in the boat for a little bit, exhaustion already creeping out of his bones to play with his head but he tells it to sit back and sit tight because he’s made a promise today; he’s gotta go see the big man today.

He sits up and grabs the oars and starts to row the boat out. It takes a while, and his shoulders and back, still sore, are already aching, but it soon goes away and he can feel the way his blood pumps through his body; it churns through his head, though his heart, and he feels it, feels life moving inside of him again and he doesn’t stop because he doesn’t want to forget how it feels to be alive.

When he’s far out enough so that, if he extends his arm and sticks out his thumb, he can erase the sorry shack from the shore, he drops the oars into the boat and reaches toward the stern to start the motor. It revs and it strains and he tells it, _“c’mon, c’mon,”_ and then, finally, he’s shooting out into the dark, away from the shore, away from the black rocks, away from California.

He didn’t grow up in California. He grew up in Arizona, on a military base his dad never came back to and his mom never left. He got out of there when he finally got the balls to say “fuck it” and went to UCLA. He didn’t come back, even after he heard his mom had died. But he heard about that three months after it happened, so there was really no point in going back anyway. He wonders, sometimes, how his uncle thinks of him now; angry and defiant and ungrateful and _gay_ — the second and only generation after his father, someone who was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or an ass-kisser and be a great man. Now he’s floating somewhere near the Pacific coastline in a stolen boat with a cooler full of ice and grainy shellfish meat.

He has the net, too. That’s important. That’s his net, really his. He bought it himself; though, only after selling his first catch with stolen nets. But still, it’s _his_ . It’s a good net; ten-feet with an even half-inch mesh, machine-woven and made of mono-filament fibers **(** **5)** instead of nylon so the strings were weightless in and out of the water, and completely translucent. It’d been a hassle to figure out how to attach weights to the bottom because spectra-fiber twine (a purchase that had dug a deep, deep hole in his savings) was impossible to work with; he had to get creative and invent new knots worthy of at least five or six badges in some boy scouts group, he’s sure. If it weren’t for that weird, mustached guy by the wharf years back, he doesn’t think he would have ever gotten where he was now. The guy had tossed him a tin of beeswax at sundown; to keep the knots in place, the guy had said after laughing at the way he’d struggled all day in the sun, and it was worth the burning humiliation when he finally got the knots to stay and the net was done. He’s had it for three years now, and it hasn’t torn yet and it’s always gotten him something. It was more than he could ask for.

He feels some of that pride coming back as he gropes blindly in the dark for his net. He finds the pouch he keeps stashed by the motor and slowly, carefully, takes the net out and starts to untangle it and set the bait. He stands once he’s satisfied, feet quickly moving to a balanced stance along the bottom of the boat; he’s done this so many times he no longer has to think about how far apart his feet are and how rough the rocking of the boat is. He just stands and that’s it; that’s all he has to think about now — just standing on his own two feet.

He finds the looped hand line and puts his left hand though it, cinches it tight and starts coiling the rest of the line, nice and even, in his left hand. He remembers the girl who taught him how to do this, the dry-load toss **(** **6)** method; she was a nice gal with a sweet voice, and the big man loved her the way summer love songs always crooned about for months over the radio. _Weave the hand down the netting, stop about two feet down. Grab that and move it to your left hand. Don’t let go of the hand line!_ They were still together; a long-distance relationship that worked just fine. She’d be here in a month or two, maybe sooner. _Find the edge of the net with your right hand_ — _no, not from the bottom, from the side. That’s right, there we go_ — _Now start bunching it in your right hand until you’ve got half. Roll that half you’ve got over your left thumb_ . _Keep it there_ — _don’t let it slide off!_ He forgets her name. Shay, was it? It was short for something else, though. Sharon? Shannon? Or maybe it’s just a nickname and there was another name entirely. Ashley? Cerise?

He follows the instructions to the letter, then reaches along the bottom of the net to pluck at a spot about halfway with his pinky and raises it up to his teeth. He takes the rest of the netting, spits out the single string, and, carefully, tosses the entire thing like it’s a frisbee. The net bursts open; its strings are soundless and invisible in the dark; multiple splashes as the weights puncture the water are the only indication that he’s thrown the net at all. That, and the tugging against his wrist where he’s cinched the hand line.

The tugs brings him back to when he was young; he sees Shiro smiling and pulling his morose sixteen-year-old self through the school carnival on a Saturday afternoon; he sees Shiro’s broad grin (the same one he’s seen at fourteen meeting each other through the school’s “Big Brother, Big Sister” program) when they actually win a game of H-O-R-S-E against their basketball coach and their team captain. _See? I told you I’d make it worth coming here,_ he hears Shiro telling him as they drank Coke from the same bottle. _I’m sorry_ , he also hears Shiro telling him later that evening as they sat in Shiro’s car listening to _The Police_ together, _but I don’t feel the same way._

Slowly, he loosens the loop of the hand line from his wrist. His skin feels raw and cold, and he ignores the tingling prickles of ice dancing along his arm as he ties the hand line of the net to the cleat on starboard and sinks down to the bottom of the boat so his back lies flat. He starts to see colors in the sky —a dark grey and a sliver of dark blue —and thinks about Shiro’s car and how it never seemed to lock on the passenger’s side no matter how many times the car went to the auto shop. He wonders what happened to it; it was probably replaced now, of course. That was quite some time ago.

He rests the back of his hand against his forehead; his face feels cold but his hand is colder, and it makes a slight shiver pass through him, and then he is made aware of how his whole body feels chilled, even if the air is growing hot and humid with each moment the sun rises in the sky. He feels the way his clothes, sopping wet and frozen, stick to him like a second skin; it becomes an extra weight against his chest that’s barely there, pressing into him like an iron that has yet to be turned on. And suddenly, he is too deep inside the boat; he hears the water lapping against it as a sharp slap in his ears, feels the strong, firmness of the boat against his back, hot and sweaty, and sees the sky that starts to lighten as time pushes the clouds far away stretching higher and higher out of reach, and that’s when he starts to sink—

He sits up with a start, clammy hands running over his face, head whirling with the sudden change of altitude and his heart fluttering like a trapped bird in his chest, because that’s how he feels, every day — trapped; trapped in time, in his own head, unable to move on. He fishes his head out of his hands and looks up again to see how much _time_ has slipped through his fingers. He sees a sunrise in the distance, soft pastels of pink and blue streaming from the horizon, and it makes his whole heart ache with a longing he hasn’t ever figured out how to get rid of because _how_ , how can he move on; where was his sunrise, his next day; what did he have to do to find it; what was he missing; what was he doing wrong?

He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes and takes a long, shuddering breath. His nails dig into his scalp, and his hands are pressing against his eyes so hard he starts to see swathes of white in murky darkness until suddenly everything is white, and that terrifies him because it seems endless, and he pulls away at last, chest heaving and filling his lungs and mouth with air as his vision blurs with tears and makes the sky swirl with all the colors of Shiro’s fiancée, Shiro’s beloved, Shiro’s new wife.

He forgets all about his net and stays in the boat, drifting along in his memories somewhere out in the Pacific where there’s no one who can see him fading slowly away, because that’s what he’s been doing all these years, drifting and fading.

The sky is alight with a soft, gentle blue when he finally decides to remember the net. How long has it been since he cast it? Was there anything still there? Stupid, he tells himself angrily, you stupid dumb fuck; he’s angry at himself now because he’s out of bait and there’s probably nothing in his net because who would stay long after they’ve had their fill? No one, that’s who.

He took hold of the hand line and started pulling it back. Five seconds in, and the line goes taut. He can’t pull at it anymore, no matter how hard he strains. The line almost cuts into his palm; he stops when he feels the warning sting against his skin. He’s cut his hand trying to haul in an anchored net once before, and he’s inclined to leave the experience counter for that at a one.

 _Rocks_ , was his first thought. _Trash_ , was the second. Remnants of anger from before come bubbling to the surface, renewed as frustration, and he lets go of the hand line, watching the string snap back into the water. He shucks off his trousers, peeling them off his legs with all the ease of pulling the skin off a grape, and jumps into the water. The water hits him with a shock of ice; he’s taken in immediately, head pulled down under and water filling up his ears. Then he’s bounced back up, breaking the surface and he takes in long, deep breaths. His arms and legs move quickly, treading water and keeping him afloat just long enough for him to take in a gulp of air and dive back down.

He opens his eyes and ignores the brief sting as seawater floods into his eyes. He can’t see the net very well, but he sees the hand line and grabs it, following it down and sinking deeper into the water and closer to the rocks at the bottom of the seafloor, and he hopes, he _prays_ that the snag hasn’t ruined the mesh, hasn’t ripped the net, and maybe, could there be something inside — an abalone, a skipjack, _something_.

And there _is_ something in his net, and it is a _large_ something; a shimmering blue that he almost doesn’t see, except the sun is brightening overhead and his eyes are finally starting to adjust and he sees that, _yes_ , there _is_ a large ‘something’ in his net, a _very_ large ‘something,’ and it makes his heart stop once he’s drawn closer and he— just— _fre e z e s_ because _. . ._

There is a man in his net.

The man is not moving.

He breaks to the surface in record speed, gasping and legs kicking wildly underneath and palms slapping the water around him and he gets dunked underwater for just a moment and the sea makes him swallow its salty concoction and then he’s back up again gasping for air because oh god, oh no, oh no, no, _oh_ — there is a dead man in his net, jesus _christ_ , fuck, _shit_ , there is a _dead man_ in his net, FUCK, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —

He latches onto the side of his boat as his brain screams AIR AIR AIR and LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE at the same time; his heart pounds in his chest with thundering slams, each beat crying MONEY MONEY MONEY as his brain slowly chugs through what’s next, what now, what’s he gonna do, what’s he gonna need?

He needs his net.

He needs a catch.

He needs to get out of here.

He doesn’t know which one of those he needs first, and the part of his brain screaming AIR AIR AIR starts to die down as he stays hanging on the side of the boat and now all he hears is LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE and MONEY MONEY MONEY and the two voices become a warring chant inside his head and all he wants to do is bang his head against the boat and _make it STOP_ because maybe, maybe this is just a dream; maybe he’s hallucinating; he hasn’t eaten, he hasn’t spoken to anyone in days except the big man this morning, so maybe he’s losing it, maybe he’s— maybe he’s _crazy_.

The sky brightens overhead, clouds rolling over his conflicted state because they don’t know, they don’t see, they don’t care. He starts to breathe normally again, slowly, and he tries to think again; what is he gonna do?

He needs to get the net back. That, he knows for sure. It is the single thread of clarity he has right now, because of course he needs his net back; he can’t continue living his way without it.

He needs to get the net back. Then, and only then, he tells himself, _then_ he can leave. He can leave, get out of here, pretend he never saw anything, pretend he never found anything. He can go see the big man, he can text Pidge and tell her just kidding, he can work today. He can leave this behind and forget all about it; think of it as another job, the kind that paid real good; like last week’s job, the one from Pidge.

Okay, he agrees, okay.

He takes another breath of air, and plunges back down into the water.

Slowly, he sinks himself further and further, until he is close to the dead man. Light starts to filter through the water, and with this light it finally dawns upon him that the dead man… is not a dead _man_.

The dead man does not have legs. Instead, just below the navel the skin starts to overlap with thin, blue scales that become thicker and more vibrant in color the whole length down, ending with a split-fan tail, bright and shimmering like ice against the sea’s murky depths.

His mind refuses to use the verbiage it knows in describing the dead man. Because he will not acknowledge that he is looking at a— that, caught in his, is a—

He doesn’t know how to finish that without sounding like a madman.

 _Get the net back!_ his mind shouts, supplying him with thought and the motivation to move again; move, move closer to the—

He follows the hand line and finds the near translucent mono fibers of his net, picking along where the net has bunched shut at the top and then his fingers freeze and his mind threatens to run blank because he has to bring the net over the dead man to get him out of the net; he might have to _touch the dead man._

Okay, he tells himself, okay, okay, oh god, _no_ , okay, it’s okay, FUCK, it’s okay, he can do this, _shit_.

He swims back up for air. Stares at the hand line tied to his boat as his lungs take in mouthful after mouthful of warm, salty air. Stares at it for a while longer. Contemplates just cutting the line and getting out of here.

No, he needs the net. He _needs_ the net.

“Shit,” he curses, slapping his hands against the water and kicking his feet out. The movement jerks him backwards in the water, and he treads water at the surface as he closes his eyes and, just, breathes, for a few moments.

Then he swims to his boat and unties the hand line from the side. He’ll get back to the boat. It won’t go far. This won’t take long. He’ll get back to it in time.

He takes another deep breath.

He goes back down.

He follows the hand line all the way down, getting to the handle where the net has cinched shut, and pulls it open like breaking open an orange from the center after you’be gotten rid of its peel. He has to be careful with the netting, and he pulls it open and drags it down, down, down until he reaches the dead man.

He is face to face with the dead man.

Slowly, carefully, he slides the netting over the dead man’s head. And then he stops.

Around the dead man’s neck is a stone. It glows against the dead man’s brown skin, and before he can stop himself he is grabbing the stone and lifting it over the dead man’s head. It feels warm in his hand, as if it is possessed with life. It shimmers in the water, in his palm, and he stares long and hard at it, then takes a look at the dead man’s face.

The dead man is still not moving.

He brings the stone around his neck and tucks it into the front of his shirt. A wild, mad thought surfaces to his consciousness; a voice tells him that he can see the stone through the dark fabric of his shirt, it’s a beacon of hope, a guiding light from deep within the ocean. He abandons the thought and continues opening up the net, pushing it down the dead man’s torso and limbs and even further, all the way down the full length of the dead man’s shimmering blue scales. His hand brushes against a tail fin; it feels heavy, as if it is made out of plexiglass sheets, and immediately, he looks up.

The dead man does not stir.

Of course, he thinks, because the man is dead.

He removes the netting from the tail, refusing to think any more than _slide the mesh over, under, and_ _—_ _there we go, it’s come free!_ He swims up, up, up, legs and feet kicking powerfully under him and he surfaces again, arms carrying him the short distance to the boat that drifted a few feet ahead and, _yes_ , he’s here, he’s here and he’s good; he’s here and he’s good and he’s fine, just fine. He hauls himself back into the boat, slipping and sliding and banging his knees and elbows and forehead and shit, is that another tear in his shirt? Fuck.

He shoves the net into the boat and doesn’t care that it’s a tangled mess and there’s seaweed, seaweed, and more _seaweed_ tangled around and it’s all over the boat but he doesn’t care because he needs to leave, right now; he’s gotta get out of there, right now.

He fumbles with the motor and the boat launches back to the shore and he swears to god the stone feels like ice against his chest and he yanks it out of his shirt, and only when he’s got it dangling in front of his eyes does he realize with a sickening lurch in his stomach that oh shit, oh fuck, he took this, _stole_ this, from a — from a _dead man_ , a dead man with a— with a—

And with the sun rising hot and new on his back and his boat a roaring beast racing for land, he grabs the sides of his head, hunches over, and he laughs and he laughs and he laughs because, oh wow, oh man, jesus, god _damn_ — he’s crazy; he’s so, so crazy.

The stone feels like ice the whole way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** Wording for the wedding invitation inspired by examples found [here](http://apracticalwedding.com/2015/01/wedding-invitation-wording-samples). 
> 
> **(2)** I chose the Ebell of Los Angeles as the location for a Shallura marriage because of the Renaissance architecture (which will play a symbolic part in the fic later on)  & the fact that a man named Henry LION had erected a statue in the 1930s. More information can be found [here](http://ebellla.org/about/).
> 
>  **(3)** The particular bag Keith is using can be found [here](http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.61760456.7822/drawstring_bag,220x200-pad,220x200,ffffff.u1.jpg).
> 
>  **(4)** The sea plant Keith is talking about is called the [starburst anemone](http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/03ecology/tplow.htm%20). It does have stingers, but I have no idea if it's potent enough for humans to actively be aware of. 
> 
> **(5)** I know literally 0% about cast-net fishing. All the information came through several articles and videos, the most prominent being [this article here](http://www.marlinmag.com/choosing-and-using-cast-nets#page-5).
> 
>  **(6)** I fucking watched a video on how to do the dry load toss. [You can watch it too](http://www.calusa.com/videos/). It's riveting.


	2. Water of the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How long was he going to do this to himself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooooooo. . . . This shit's fucking depressing. Why did I write this again? OTL

> _Aloha ‘oe, Aloha ‘oe_  
>  _E ke onaona noho i ka lipo_  
>  **Aloha ‘oe (Queen Lili’uokalani, 1878)**

 

 

**\--**

_Brok’ Da Mout_ is busy when he gets there. But he gets there at noon, when people are hungry and roam the beach in packs. He doesn’t know why it was a good idea to get out at noon. Already there are families and friends and couples and strangers filling up the rustic patio. In the evening, it spills customers right onto the boardwalk, most of them drunk on cheer and good food.

When he crosses the patio, he can feel eyes on his back; they are a multitude of stares trying desperately to be discreet and failing. He is shocked by a sudden thought — what if someone saw him this morning, running out with ice; what if someone saw his boat; what if someone _knew_ , recognized the stone under his shirt, around his neck, the one he stole from a dead man. But when he takes a look around and sees only furrowed brows, and hands and napkins and shirt fronts covering noses, he comes to realize — oh, it isn’t any of that. It’s just because he looks like he walked right out of the ocean: his clothes are still wet, there’s a piece of seaweed dried onto the right leg of his trousers, and he hasn’t washed in… He doesn’t remember when.

So here he is, standing in a restaurant with people all around him, and it’s noon now and he’s just _there_ , stinking up the place. He still has the public decency to feel somewhat embarrassed, though it’s more of a feeling that goes “oops, sorry” than outright shame. He figures he should head out now, get himself cleaned up; he should get to the gym and shower or something, or maybe just not see the big man today (sorry, Hunk). But before he can leave, his shoulders are grabbed by two massive hands. He freezes.

“And just where do you think _you’re_ going?”

Before he can even blink, he is promptly spun around and his face smashes into a large chest that rumbles with the boisterous laugh of a friend. “Keith! Look at you! Man, you sure weren’t kidding when you said you were growin’ out your hair again.”

He can’t help but find humor at that, and hears himself laughing along.

Hunk peels away, face split with a broad grin, and looks at him with eyes shining bright with excitement. “It’s good to see you,” he says, voice growing soft. “I worry about you, Keith.”

That definitely twists something in his gut. The twist stays even as he apologizes. “Sorry.”

Hunk’s hands are still at his shoulders, and they squeeze both with affection. “Hey, it’s all good — you’re here, right? No catch today? Ah, you know what? Forget about that, who cares? Here,” Hunk deposits a gold lanyard that says GRYFFINDOR down the side in red over his head, “Go upstairs, use the shower. I still have your clothes from the last time you came by. Uh, I think they’re in the top drawer.” **(1)**

He feels the weight of the keys tap lightly against his chest. “Thanks,” he says, hand curling around the keys.

“Anytime, Keith. Come down when you’re ready, okay? Kalani’s gonna scream when she sees you! I’m tellin’ ya, there ain’t nobody else out here who can handle a knife like you, man.”

Oh, there are plenty, he thinks to himself, they’re just behind bars. But he doesn't say this out loud because Hunk is so glad to see him, which makes him happy and he kind of wants to be happy right now. He kind of needs to feel happy.

He heads down the restaurant with Hunk leading the way, and the moment his foot passes the threshold of the kitchen, Kalani drops a meat cleaver and a thick cut of beef, throws her gloves to the floor, and runs at him.

Kalani does scream, and the cry doesn’t stop even when her arms hold him like a vice. The hold only lasts for five seconds before Kalani abruptly pulls back to fan the air in front of her face. “Whooo! Boy, I can't believe you comin’ in here smellin’ like some ratchet skank who’s puttin’ on too much—” Kalani takes a great big whiff at his neck. “Too much _eau de la mer du mort_ , you know? And I _mean_ ratchet, ‘cause you know there be some girls out there who don’t wash they hair as often as they should.” Kalani eyes his hair with a knowing look. **(2)**

Honesty was Kalani’s strongest point, but it didn’t always come out right. He just laughs, knowing she means well even if her words sound otherwise.

“You come by anytime, Keith. You’re always welcome here ‘cause Xian over there’s a real slacker. We ain’t need no more workers like him — you hear that, Hunk? No more of them college kids!”

Xian, a bright-eyed junior in college, somehow manages to give off the look of being offended without actually being offended. “Hey! Us college kids are resourceful! Who taught you how to add new contacts on your phone?”

“Alright, let’s hold the reunion later,” Hunk says, handing new gloves to Kalani and guiding Xian back to the grill. “Keith, hit the showers! I love you man, but Kalani’s right — you smell like death.”

“Come back smelling like the lily of the valley, Keith!” Xian croons, winking at him as he greases up a pan with a stick of butter. **(3)**

“Quit wastin’ that butter and fry up those onions already!” Kalani shouts, banging the handle of a cleaver on the counter.

“Whoa, watch it with that thing!”

“I’ll watch it cut you if you don’t quit fuckin’ around!”

“Guys, come on…”

He passes through the kitchen to the stairs in the back, listening to the familiar banter passing back and forth amongst _Brok’ Da Mout_ ’s small kitchen crew. He hears less and less as he climbs the steps; eventually, all he hears is the quiet way the door hinges squeak when he closes the door to Hunk’s apartment. He carefully takes off his shoes and sets them off to the side, besides Hunk’s running shoes. Then, slowly, he walks right to the middle of the den.

Nothing has changed since he’s last been here, about five months ago. Everything is still the same; there’s that ridiculous rainbow-colored lei **(4)** some elementary school teacher had apparently given to Hunk in good spirits still hanging on the wall between the room’s two windows and the large lampstand with floral decal that screams SHAY all over. The TV is shuttered away, and the soft, yellow couches still look new. He’s slept there before, a few times, and his back sorely remembers each and every hour he’s spent there, back when the apartment gave double servings of hearty, booming laughter and now, when there’s only a single serving of a quieter, mellow laugh.

He wonders how Hunk’s been since his dad died. If he remembered correctly, Hunk had to set aside childhood plans for an engineering degree to run the pub-turned-restaurant instead. He’s not sure how Hunk’s holding up now, but he seems to be okay. Or maybe he’s missing something, and something is terribly, terribly wrong. It’s something that eats at him, because he should know, he’s Hunk’s friend; at least, that’s the way he sees it. Maybe Hunk sees it differently; maybe, to Hunk, he’s a good kid who just needs a hand every now and then, from someone who’s got the means and the heart to do it.

He hangs the lanyard over the hook of the door he’s leaning on and gets to the bathroom first. Then he leaves the bathroom because, oops, he needs to find his clothes first; can’t walk around somebody’s house butt naked, right? He raised himself better than that.

He gets to Hunk’s room and finds that the dresser has been moved from its old place beside the window. Now it’s sitting against the back corner of the room. He pulls open the top drawer and sees an array of clothes that are too small to be Hunk’s and too close to his size to be a coincidence. There’s a weird feeling mixing in his gut, something that’s kind of like gratitude and disbelief. It’s quick to gouge itself out and leave behind something ugly, like anger and shame and disgust, and that’s when he closes the drawer without taking anything and, just, leans his forehead against the top.

He’s known Hunk for a little over two years, and he knows Hunk is kind, Hunk is caring, Hunk is selfless. And it all just makes him sick to his stomach because how long, _how long will this last_ before it all stops, and he knows — oh, how he _knows_ that this sort of thing always came to an end. So how long was he going to do this; how long was he going to show up at Hunk’s door, wondering if this was his last shirt, his last jeans, his last shower, his last meal, his last day, his—

_His last friend._

How long was he going to do this to himself?

He lifts his head back up and opens the drawer, fishing for _his_ shirt and _his_ jeans, and not Hunk’s, even if they were too small for Hunk anyway. He gets to the bathroom and strips, getting rid of the shirt with holes and keeping his trousers (he’ll wash them, he’ll wash them himself) and he steps into the shower and turns on the water, still in his boxer briefs because he needs to wash that, too; he’ll just wash it here and dry it here, it didn't matter.

His hair feels heavy and thick and when he washes it he can see how the water blackens and greens because of all those times he’s been dunked into the ocean, and all those times he’s sweat in the sun, and all those times he’s laid in the sand to dry himself out, and all those times, all those times, _all those times._

His skin feels hot and raw when he steps out, and the fogged mirror catches the sharp gleam of the stone still hanging around his neck. It still feels, even after a shower so hot it leaves red patches on his skin, like ice.

What is this, he wonders, that it stays so cold? What is it made of? What’s inside?

He stops wondering when he thinks of the dead man and remembers how the dead man was _not_ a dead _man_ , but then quickly decides that he doesn't particularly care anymore; the dead man was _dead_.

Still, he feels the guilt. Still, he hates himself.

But the stone looks good in the palm of his hand. It’s small, but endearing. Beautiful, maybe. And valuable.

He’ll sell it.

He keeps it around his neck, and later, when he puts _his_ shirt back on, keeps it out in plain sight. It seems to glow against the black fabric of his shirt.

He tells himself he’s imagining things and lets go of the stone. He grabs his wet boxer briefs and dries them with a hair dryer, and when he feels like it’s good enough he puts them back on and pulls _his_ jeans over them.

He picks up his wet trousers and his old shirt; he carries their wet, musty stench through the apartment and gets all the way to the kitchen, where he finally finds what he’s looking for — that big plastic bin where all the used grocery bags were thrown into. He fishes one out and dumps his wet clothes inside and ties the bag with a loop knot. He washes his hands and eyes the clock hanging on a wall and notes that he’s spent about an hour in the apartment today, which is another hour’s worth of water and soap and now shirts and pants and socks and underwear and how much does he owe now? How much time and money and care does he have to pay back, now? And how much more will it be?

Maybe, he thinks carefully, hopefully, maybe he should just take the job here. He’s good with knives, and he wouldn’t have to speak to anyone, really, except maybe Kalani and Xian. There’s another girl who works here, Ji-Hae, but she doesn’t talk nice if there’s no money or drink involved anyway.

And here, there’s Hunk. Hunk, his friend, his only friend. Hunk was not Mr. Lang, who threw him out after arguing with a customer at _Cafe Zaiya_ ; Hunk was not Mr. Yalof, who fired him for not showing up to work at the mall because the crowds made him anxious (he just didn’t want to fight anyone) and he was always late, anyway; and Hunk was not Mr. Frey, who had to pull him off before he could break some guy’s jaw for touching him during a one-on-one training session and he was so upset and angry at himself that he just never showed up to work again.

So maybe, _maybe_ , he should just take the job. It’ll be a new start; he can do it; he can save up — for real, this time — and maybe he can find another apartment and use his own shower and keep his own clothes and finally, _finally_ pay Hunk back for helping out with _all those times_. Then he can get rid of the net, get rid of the boat, get rid of the shack, get rid of everything else and work and live and be happy, because being happy — isn’t that what he needs, too?

And then he shakes his head because what he needs isn’t that at all, it’s something else entirely. What he needs is to find somewhere he can be where he can’t get kicked out, and what better place was there than the junkyard cove? He’s tried other places; he’s tried work, he’s tried school, he’s tried people, and there are limits to that. There are no limits in the junkyard cove because there’s nothing to be had in the junkyard cove. And he was fine with that; he could make do with nothing; because if you had nothing, you lost nothing and you gained… nothing worth losing. Maybe that’s why he stole the old man’s boat during the funeral and illegally sells fish to Hunk; and maybe that’s why he delivers cryptic notes and sealed envelopes for Pidge, dropping them off to strangers at 4 in the morning for a few hundred dollars he’ll shove into a savings account with the hopes of doing something worthwhile.

And it’s for that something worthwhile that he finally gets the courage to come back downstairs, Hunk’s keys and his old clothes in hand, and takes the knife Kalani pushes in his face and chops and slices and trims and flays and skins everything that’s thrown his way.

 

* * *

 

Brok’ Da Mout closes itself for the afternoon. Windows are shuttered and the door is locked and the patio is barren. The kitchen is alive and loud, filled with people prepping for the evening. He watches the rest of the kitchen crew from a spot at the bar; there’s Noah, who takes over for Kalani so she can go to that doctor’s appointment she’s been trying to schedule for months, and Genesis, who Xian is probably going to drive up the wall by trying to sing Spanish love songs to her. Ji-Hae the bartender walks in late, and smiles at Hunk and only at Hunk before going blank-faced and dumping all of her stuff on the stairs leading to the apartment and helping the crew with whatever she can.

“You’re moored early today,” says Pidge from his side. She’s still finishing the sake-soy grilled ono she ordered an hour ago because she’s tapping away on a laptop that’s tinier than his face. He doesn’t get how anyone can see anything on the screen. **(5)**

But that was probably the point.

Pidge doesn’t wait for him to answer her, and instead just plows right on. “Are you free tomorrow?”

He’s had this conversation enough times already that he knows ‘tomorrow’ is somewhere from midnight to dawn. He’s also had this conversation enough times to know that it doesn’t matter what he says — he’s going to have to take the job.

“Can you come in at 2?”

“Is it far?”

Pidge snorts. “Far from your squatter’s shack, yeah.” Then she turns and squints her eyes at something below his face. “Are you wearing rock candy around your neck?”

Immediately he wraps his fingers around the stone. “No.”

She turns back to the laptop, eyes dancing across the screen at some lines she’s banged out for the past hour or so. “Blue’s not really your color. Just saying.”

He looks down at the stone hanging from his neck. It’s not shining anymore; it’s a dull, opaque blue against his black shirt.

It also doesn’t feel like ice.

What does that mean? He wonders, feeling a ghostly chill run down his back. The chill runs away when a warm hand gives a firm pat on his back. He knows it’s Hunk without having to look.

“Ah, don’t listen to Pidge,” Hunk says, throwing off his apron and letting it hang over the counter. He comes around on the other side of the bar and stops to stand across from the two of them. “I think it looks nice.” Hunk smiles.

He can’t help but smile back.

“Yeah,” Pidge scoffs, “if you’re colorblind, maybe.”

He watches Hunk roll his eyes. Hunk faces him again. “Did you buy it? Or,” and here, his smile gets secretive and it makes him nervous, “was it a gift?”

“I—” Nerves make his voice catch in his throat. He finds it soon enough. ”I found it,” he says, because, well, that wasn’t a _lie_.

Pidge squints at him through her large glasses. “Did you just stutter?”

He ignores her. Or tries to; it’s hard when your only employer — who he’s convinced is conducting illegal activity and may or may not be roping him in by making him play messenger every now and then — is staring at you with the eyes of a soulless gremlin. “I found it this morning,” he finally says, if only to get off the radar, “I was fishing this morning. It got caught in the net.” _That_ was a lie.

He feels like he should’ve just told her he ripped it right off a dead man’s neck, a dead man that’s still floating somewhere out there and isn’t a dead man, because now her eyes are sharp and boring holes right into his chest where the stone hangs.

But then she sits back to spoon pineapple chunks into her mouth and he can breathe again.

“That’s an uncut aquamarine gem,” she says with a mouth full of pineapple. “I know a guy who takes uncut gems and re-sells them when they’re dipped in gold. I’ll pay half a grand for it. Maybe more if I find he’s willing to buy higher.”

He’s actually considering it when Hunk interjects.

“Nah, don’t do that, Keith,” Hunk says, reaching over and tapping the stone on his chest. “It’s aquamarine, right? You know, my dad used to tell me these stories when I was a kid, about sailors who’d carry aquamarine gems around as a talisman. They thought it could protect them when they were out at sea. My dad used to say that some sailors believed the spirit of the ocean was inside it, and that’s why the ocean would be so calm — cause it’s around itself, you know? That’s how the gem got it’s name, too. Aqua Marinus — water of the sea.” **(6)**

His fingers close around the stone. It feels dead in his hand.

Almost as dead as Pidge’s belief in fairy tales.

A slow clap echoes in the empty pub. Pidge is staring Hunk dead in the eye. “Wow, great story. Is it bed time already?”

Hunk chuckles. “You telling me you actually sleep?”

He watches a flicker of amusement hide behind a sudden glare on the lens of Pidge’s glasses as she leans back. “Well, now,” Pidge says with a slow stretch of a smile, “you certainly got me there.”

Their conversations lasts until Hunk is needed back in the kitchen. Pidge takes her leave, with a firm reminder that he is to come in at 2 o’clock and not a second later, and takes her laptop and a small black backpack out with her.

He walks back to the beach, over the hot sand, as the sun shines bright in a cloudless sky. He carries his old clothes with him, throwing his mold-stinking shirt (the one full of holes) into a trash bin and taking his pants with him to wear when he can no longer tell what he or the pants smell like and lets it dry out in the sand in the cove. The sun beats down relentlessly on him, but the stone on his neck never turns warm.

Instead, it slowly burns like ice.

 

* * *

 

He does not sleep well that night; he lies in the cabin as old ghosts come to visit in droves.

He’s in the boat with the old man, who sits facing the bow, and he faces the stern. He grips the hand line of his expensive net, and the grip is almost as tight as the one suddenly on his shoulder, on his left shoulder, and it feels the way it did the day Shiro left him behind in a dry Arizona town for college on the East Coast, except this hand is bony and rotten and missing patches of skin. It is the old man, who speaks to him with Shiro’s voice — _“I just need to know that you’re okay”_ — and the guilt that floods him weighs so heavy in his heart that it drops like a stone and carves a hole inside his stomach.

The hand leaves him, and he turns just in time to see the old man reach down into the water. The moment the old man’s right arm grazes the water, the surface bubbles and steams and hisses and then a black tentacle wraps gently around the old man’s arm and _p u l l s_ him in, plucking him right off the boat and below the depths of the sea. He tries — oh, how he tries to reach in for the old man, but there is nothing but water, water, _water_ , and he panics, and he shucks off his red and white jacket and he dives right in and he hits the hard, wooden floorboards of his shack and there is nowhere to dive anymore.

He hears a soft scritching and scratching in the wood, and it seems to be shaking the whole shack but then from the side, near the desk, he sees something digging right through the wood of the rotting cabin he was forced to live in. It’s the old dent from when he threw that damn clock; he knew it, he knew it would come, that rats would come right on in; and they do, but just one, big and black with long silver whiskers and eyes of blood, and its head pushes through the hole it has gnawed. It takes one look at him and says — _“Just breathe, you’ll be alright”_ — and then it’s gone, sliding out of that hole and then the sea starts gushing in like a geyser, the walls of the shack trembling and shaking and splintering.

The rat told him to breathe but he _can’t_ breathe, not when there’s so much water coming in; it’s rising up to his chest now and he can’t escape; the door is gone, but it doesn’t matter because the water is at his chin now and he can see the walls falling apart all around him — _yes, this is good, this is good,_ he thinks, because he can be free! But when the walls fall apart, he is swallowed by the sea. He is pulled into the great ocean and he sees the old man, who is dancing with a black octopus, and they embrace each other and they look at him and he knows what they are thinking — they are wondering:  _“Why are you doing this to yourself?”_

His lungs ache and he tries to swallow the pain down but he swallows water instead and now he’s _d r o w n i n g_ and he fe el s h im  s  el  f  d  r   i   f   t    o   f     f

Light explodes from the stone; it blinds him and stops everything, and everything turns into a bright, bright blue, and in this new brightness he sees a beautiful brown face staring right into him and he knows — it is the dead man. The dead man reaches forward with a hand, grasping the stone tight in a fist, and the dead man speaks, furious, _“YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY FROM ME”_

He jolts awake and rips the stone off because it is searing into his skin like a hot coal. He yanks down the collar of his shirt, looks down and is shocked because there is nothing, absolutely nothing; his skin is pale and smooth, unmarred. His ears fill with the sound of wild, rushing waves and he stares at the empty walls of his shack but there is nothing that falls, nothing that breaks. There isn’t even a hole; the dent is still there.

He looks to the side, where he knows the stone has clattered to the floor and sees it shine bright against the dark and he is grabbing it in his hand and, before he knows what he is doing, he is out.

The sea is black and the sand is white. The sky throws a million lights above his head, and the pale face of the moon has poured shimmering milk into the sea. He needs to go there, something whispers to him, he needs to go out to sea.

He takes the boat down, gets swallowed by the ocean as he floats the boat in, and he cuts his foot on a rock but it doesn’t matter; he doesn’t care — he needs to get out to sea. He brings with him, clenched tight in a fist, the blue stone. It burns into his palm, and nothing soothes it except the sea, so he throws it to the bottom of the boat and tells it to _fucking wait; I’m bringing you back, you fucking piece of shit._

He doesn’t row out and wait until he’s far from shore before he starts the motor this time; he’s got it on as soon as he can. He feels the motor send a strong hum through the boat as it propels him through the waves, and he doesn’t stop until he’s exactly at the spot where he was before; he can tell, he can feel it; it's  _here_.

He kills the motor, grabs the stone, gets up to his feet, reels his arm back and, with a heavy grunt, hurls the stone and its broken chain as far as he can, watching it sail back into the sea.

Only, it doesn’t fall into the water; at least, not yet. A silvery flash jumps out of the sea, and in the light of the full moon, he sees a figure and he knows exactly who it is — the dead man, who artfully rises and arcs beautifully out of the water.

And catches the flying gem.

There is a great splash as the dead man returns to sea, and it soon becomes only a place of rushing waves, an uncut gem, and a dead man, no longer dead nor even a man but a creature who is undeniably mystical in nature.

But still, he refuses to say it.

He stands in the boat in the rocking sea, watching the rolling waves as if somehow, he will be able to make sense of it all.

And then his boat gets rammed from the side.

He falls backwards into the sea. He sinks into darkness. Opens his stinging eyes. There is no old man, no octopus, no rat or dead man; there is nothing, but he hears everything — the rush of the water as it fills his ears, the old man’s voice, still wondering _why are you doing this to yourself?_ but he doesn’t know; he doesn't know why he's doing this to himself; he doesn’t even know what he’s doing half the time, really, except that he might be drowning, except that he might be waiting, for something, something new, _something dead_ , something exciting, _something dead_ , something worthwhile, _something dead, something dead, something dead, something dead._

He can’t breathe and there is fear and also a calm as he stares into black water and hears nothing but his mind repeating _something dead, something dead;_ he’s waiting for _something dead_ — and maybe, he thinks, maybe this is alright; it’s alright to wait for _something dead_ here; it’s alright to be here; it’s alright to be something dead.

He bre a  t   h   e    s        o   u     t

Suddenly, he is propelled to the surface, a great strength at his wrist that p u l l s him up so fast, he can’t keep his eyes open and he squeezes them shut, and there’s a loud crashing noise that explodes in his head and something keeps roaring and roaring and roaring in his ears. He gasps and his lungs expand and he is suddenly terrified because _he can breathe_ , and he is terrified because _he can see_ , and he is terrified because _there, there is the boat!_ It is far, far away; _he_ is far, far away.

Black water hurls over him, and he drowns in the dark and swallows the sea. He gets pulled again and now he’s out, over the waves, and he can’t think of anything else but SWIM SWIM SWIM and he pulls the water back with his arms even as the ocean tries to drag him back to her. He swims and he swims and he swims until finally, his hand thwacks against the side of the boat and the bones in his hand sing in joyous pain because he is _here_ , he has made it, and he grabs the side of the boat with two hands but his arms shake and he can’t get in, and the water takes him again, sucking him down and he is terrified but he still lashes out and his hands find the boat again and he is suddenly pushed by an unknown strength and he rises up and he tumbles into the boat, rolling and clunking up and over port side.

He lands on his back inside the boat, and he chokes and coughs and vomits the sea as he freezes in his own skin, teeth rattling in his head. He is frozen but his chest is on fire, in pain, with every wheezing gasp and cough his body forces him to make.

He lies in a pool of his own vomit and water from the sea inside his boat, and when he is able to breathe without setting fire to his nostrils and throat, when he is able to listen to something other than the roaring waves and the chatter of his teeth — like his own steady heartbeat — he starts to laugh because he can’t believe he actually— that he actually almost—

He laughs harder, and he thinks, he realizes— wow, he’s crazy, he really is crazy; he’s finally losing it, after five years of living in a shack on the shore and stinking like the sea, he’s finally losing it — and all because he saw a man with blue fins, all because he was thrown into sea, all because he saw in black water how quiet it could be and—

And then he starts crying, sobbing, in the boat, where the wet contents inside slosh around and rinse him in disgusting filth; he cries because oh, oh man, for a second there, it was as if he actually, really, wanted to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** Hunk belongs to House Gryffindor. You can't convince me otherwise, I'LL FUCKING FIGHT YOU ON IT. :)
> 
>  **(2)** "Eau de la mer du mort" is literally translated as "water of the dead sea" and also just a fancy way of saying "fragrance of a dead ocean"
> 
>  **(3)** The flower, Lily of the Valley, carries the meaning of "returning to happiness." Xian doesn't know the meaning, this is just put in for symbolism. Because Keith needs happiness.
> 
>  **(4)** OKAY, STORY TIME! So, one of my dearest friends for whom I would gladly give my left and right arms to had told me, a long time ago, about the time she got the most ridiculous gift from her fourth grade teacher. After finding out she was Hawaiian, her teacher totally went “ZOMG!!” and, the very next day, this eager young lady comes up to her and gives her a lei made of plastic and artificial rainbow flowers. To make her feel “more at home.” What. The. Fuuuuuuuck-- Oh my god, we still laugh about this TO THIS DAY. That lady; that poor, ignorant lady.
> 
>  **(5)** The recipe for Sake-Soy Grilled Ono can be found [here](http://recipe-finder.com/recipe/16840702029294797476). 
> 
> **(6)** The meaning behind the Aquamarine stone is very important to this fic. You can read about it [here](http://www.crystalvaults.com/crystal-encyclopedia/aquamarine).


	3. Marooned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They both know he’s lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I am so sorry that this wasn't updated for so long. I work full time, so finding time to write is incredibly difficult. Secondly, I literally wrote this all in one day. So if there are errors, DM me on tumblr or something, I don't mind.
> 
> Also! According to the outline, Lance makes a speaking appearance in the next chapter! :)))) But also according to the outline, 30% of what's in this chapter wasn't originally planned! :)))) So who knows what's really gonna happen. I sure as heck don't. :V

> ♫  
>       ♫  
>   ♫  
>      ♪
> 
> _**We Are Alone in a City (The Flashbulb)** _

 

 

 

\---

He gets to shore and falls in the sand. It’s just like in the movies, where the hero collapses after a long, winded voyage at sea, except he’s no hero and there was never any voyage at sea — ( _he was just floating out there, only floating)._ And when he falls, it’s not to a bed of soft, wet sand. There are rocks everywhere beneath the sand, all pointed slants and jagged edges, and they cut into his face, his ribs, his chest, his legs like sharp teeth. One narrowly misses his groin and sinks into the juncture of where his leg meets his hip. It doesn’t hurt like it could, but he shudders and cries out nonetheless because the pain of what could overrides the pain of what is.

He lies there in the dark, a half-drowned thing stuck somewhere between dead and alive like a fish out of water, gasping for breath that doesn’t quite seem to fill up his lungs the way its supposed to. He feels the bruises forming beneath his skin; it’s a silent sort of crying from within his own body, thin rivulets of pain bleeding from unseen capillaries, dark flowers of black and blue patterning his skin the way weeds sprout color onto fresh lawns — it’s unwanted, these marks and those weeds; completely and utterly unwanted. They’ll disappear, after some time, and the pain will cease and the colors will fade, and he wishes he could do the same, if only for a little while — be a weed and wilt and die.

Not all of them will just wilt away. Some are yanked out of the ground, some are hacked away, and some are poisoned. He doesn’t want any of that, he tells himself, not even the slightest. But he wonders about it, and wonders if perhaps that is what happened to him; if perhaps he was pulled out from somewhere he belonged and hacked away and poisoned. Maybe that’s why he’s so miserable — leaving his family, squatting in some shack nobody wants, and drowning in the sea; all this loneliness, abandonment, and fear — Maybe he’s done this all to himself.

If that’s so, then maybe he should just stay here, in the ground. Really ‘in the ground,’ he thinks, and he starts to dig his fingers into the sand, feeling the smooth, coarse grains of wet sand pinch under his fingernails and wrap around his fingers in a moist embrace that feels, almost, like an intimate gesture. A cold one, because it is cold beneath the sand; the grains become shards of ice that painfully fill the gaps under his nails. The earth opens up as he digs in, swallowing his hand whole. But this time, there is no welcoming wash of relief; there is only a cold grave the farther he digs. There is nothing for him here.

He pulls his hand out, shaking the sand off his fingers and thinking — _What the hell, what the hell are you doing? Get up, you idiot; get up before you freeze to death._ He has to listen to the sound of his voice yelling at him inside his own head a couple more times before he finally decides that _yes,_ he _does_ want to get up; there really _is_ nothing for him here.

He rises from the sand, pushing himself up with the heels of his hands. The rocks scratch against the calloused skin of his palms; he barely feels a thing. He picks himself up, gets to his knees, and already he’s tired — he’s so, so tired. His eyes sting from the sharp, salty breeze; his skin braces against the freezing cold; his clothes, soaked with the sea and from his own vomit still sloshing in his boat, has all but turned to ice. The day has only begun, and already he is cold and he is tired; he is kneeling in the sand in soiled clothes in a junkyard by the sea, and the day has only begun.

Somehow, he stands. Somehow, he walks. And somehow, he gets home.

Home is not what he’d imagined home to be nine years ago, when he was sixteen and slept over at Shiro’s every weekend; or when he was eighteen, and the Galaxy Garrison reached out to him; or even when when he was twenty, and saw his name on a plaque on a wall at Planet Fitness as January’s Employee of the Month. Instead, home is a small, wooden shack with a rotting dock pointing westward and slowly sinking into the sand; it is a quiet place, secluded, with just enough room for a futon and some personals on a splintered desk and rolled up wads of cash he’d withdrawn from the bank some time ago. **(1)**

And, apparently, home is also a place of giggles and whispers and muted gasps. Because that’s what his home sounds like right now.

There are people inside his home. It’s not Hunk (he doesn’t sound anything like that), it’s not Pidge (she’d never step foot out here again), nor is it anyone else he knows. He hears two people inside his home, and it’s not anybody he thinks he knows — just an idiot couple, probably, fooling around in what they think is an empty cabin. At that, some kind of emotion spills out of him; the kind that’s got him grinding his teeth and marching the rest of the way up to his cabin, kicking sand every which way; the kind that’s got him bending down and picking up the chain he uses to keep his boat tied to the rotting dock so it doesn’t floating away on that off chance that the water actually does get up here. He won’t _really_ use it, he tells himself as he clasps his fingers around the cold metal of the chain. Really, he won’t. He marches around his home to the front, and yanks open the door.

Someone screams. Something comes flying his way. He uses the chain to knock it away and notes with a growl that it’s the alarm clock he got from Hunk. It lies face-down on the floor, surely cracked.

“Don’t kill us!” someone shouts.

He stares into the dark at the hunched figures in the middle of his house. He narrows his eyes to make out two distinct faces, both boys, probably in high school, no more than sixteen or seventeen. He’s about to toss the chain to the side when he remembers all too well that even kids at fourteen years old can try to kill. His hands tightens around the chain and he growls, “Get out of my house.”

Immediately, they babble like idiots.

“Whoa, dude, you actually _live_ here?” “Dead-ass? Damn, that’s fucking—”

“Get out,” he repeats, hitting the entryway with the chain and pointing to the rocks outside. “Get out!”

“Okay, okay! Chill, dude!” “Yeah, don’t freak, man. We out.”

He watches the two boys scramble away, snickering and laughing and tripping over their own two feet. When they get to the rocks, their hands clasp tightly together as they pull each other up, higher and higher, to the top. Just before they disappear to the other side, they turn around and wave at him, grinning like idiots.

He storms inside his house and slams the door shut.

He’s happy to find that he’s not missing any cash. He’s _not_ happy to find that he has to get rid of his futon.

 

* * *

 

It’s probably a little past two in the morning when he finally gets to the red house on Ocean Drive. The streets are empty, the homes are dark and silent, and the sidewalks stay level to the asphalt. He passes by numerous _CURB YOUR DOG_ and _DON’T BE A LITTERBUG_ signs attached to the gatepost of practically every home. He thinks it’s overkill, but he hasn’t seen a scrap of paper or even a spatter of dog shit anywhere on the ground in the five years he’s been up and down Ocean Drive, so he guesses it’s a good kind of overkill.

He gets to the red house and goes through the front gate. The uneven stone path takes him all the way to a locked door, which he knows can be opened with the key that’s underneath the stone with the number of cracks matching the number of flowers in the bush to the left — there’s one, two, three, four, five roses in the bush, so it’s gotta be the stone in the middle. He lifts up the heavy stone with both hands and quickly kicks the key out from under. He brushes off the dirt and sticks the key in the door to unlock it.

The doorknob turns before he can turn the key and actually unlock the door. Someone pulls the door open from the inside.

It’s Pidge.

She stares up at him through narrowed eyes. “You’re late.”

He can’t tell if she’s mad at him or tired. He realizes it doesn’t matter. He lifts up the key. “Should I put it back?”

Pidge snatches it out of his hands. “No,” she scowls, looking him up and down. The look she’s giving him almost makes him laugh. But Pidge finds no humor in how he presents himself; she’s appalled. “You just _had_ to jump in with all your clothes on,” Pidge states dryly. “Please don’t tell me your idea of curing insomnia is to jump in a boat and go _fishing._ Do fish even bite this early? And why do you smell like you crawled out of Neptune’s asshole?”

Was that the seaweed or the vomit she’s smelling on his clothes? He hoped it wasn’t the latter. He’s tried to wash it all off in the sea. He’s even scrubbed his whole boat clean. That’s the reason why he’s so late. But she doesn’t have to know why he’s been scrubbing vomit out of his own boat in the dead of night. So instead, he keeps his face straight and says, “I fell asleep in my boat.”

“Your boat smells like Neptune’s ass.”

He gives her one of his own looks. “No she doesn’t. She’s just fine.” He’s not sure why he’s getting defensive over a boat. It wasn’t even his; it belonged to the old man up on the lighthouse.

Pidge snorts. “What, did you give her a name and everything?”

“She came with a name,” he answers in his boat’s honor. “I think.” He has no idea, actually. He thinks he remembers seeing a _MARCY_ painted on the side, but it may not be there anymore. He also has no idea why they’re even talking about this.

Pidge seems to agree. Her nose wrinkles as she makes a face of disbelief. “What the fuck,” she says, rubbing her eyes behind her large, round glasses, “This is real life. I can’t believe I’m willingly having this conversation in real life. What the fuck.”

He frowns at her obvious disgruntlement at holding a conversation about a boat stolen from the wharf of an elderly hermit who’d holed himself up in a lighthouse for fifty-some years of his life. Though, to her, the conversation was about a boat belonging to a business acquaintance illegally squatting in a washed out, dilapidated shelter at the edge of the beach. “We’ve talked about stranger things, Pidge,” he says, thinking back to a few odd jobs she’s asked him to do in the past.

“Work-related things,” says Pidge, as if it makes a difference. Then, she takes a step back and jerks her thumb behind her shoulder. “Go take a shower. And throw out whatever you’re wearing.”

He hesitates. “I don’t wanna—”

Pidge shoves a hand in his face, silencing him. “I will _pay you_ to burn everything you’re wearing right now. I insist.”

He’s not sure if he should be offended at that. Part of him feels that he should.

Pidge steps further into her house. “Hurry up,” she says, “Or else I’m docking your pay.”

Immediately, he steps into her home.

 

* * *

 

There is no guilt when he showers at the two-story red house on Ocean Drive. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that money sits deep and heavy in Pidge’s pocket, wherever it may come from. Or maybe it’s from the diamond-encrusted knobs beneath the crystal shower-head in a marble-tiled bathroom with a golden throne, all of it so ostentatious and _extra_ that he can’t help but scoff every time he enters.

Or perhaps it’s just the fact that he’s been in her employment for two years as a courier, passing on unmarked parcels and blank notes to nameless customers. He’s never asked questions about the things he’s been asked to do. To be honest, he doesn’t _want_ to know the particulars of any job he’s been asked to handle — not since he’s seen a black and white photo of a guy he once handed a letter to on the front page of a paper with the words SHOT and MURDERED plastered all over.

There’s probably a reason why Pidge came all the way out from her cozy red nest, sunburnt and soaked completely with sweat, to ask the smelly homeless guy living on the beach if he needed a job.

Sometimes, he can’t tell if it’s safe to trust Pidge or not. He’s never once had anyone crazy enough show up in the middle of night to attack him. And considering the fact that his shitty shack by the shore hasn’t been blown up or torched yet, it’s probably safe to assume that he’ll be okay. Then again, he’s only been working for Pidge for two years. And in two years, he went from being a normal kid in college with a job and friends, to a legal adult with no home and no job and only one person who still wanted to be his friend. There’s a lot that can happen in two years.

He turns on the water in the bathroom and shucks off his shirt and pants and everything else he’s got on. He tosses his briefs on the floor before snatching them up because this, _this_ he’s sure he needs to keep; there’s nothing like this he can take in this house, nor would he even want to take anything like this while he's in this house. He jumps into the water with dirty underwear in hand and proceeds to wash the fuck out of it with the collection of soaps he sees laid out on the inner shelf of the shower stall.

He's still rubbing soap into the fabric when the bathroom door opens with a sudden bang. He knows what's going to happen next.

Through the pixelated glass of the shower, he sees the short silhouette of his fourteen year old employer using tongs to pick up the wet clothes off the bathroom floor and stuff them into a big, black garbage bag.

He slides the shower wall open just a crack; big enough to stick his head out and ask, “You couldn't wait until I was done?”

“Nope,” Pidge says, raising his shirt up from the floor with a pair of long chopsticks — _so, they weren't tongs after all_ — and scrunching up her nose behind her face mask. “Because I know that when you’re done, you're just gonna stand here in the middle of the washroom holding these disgusting rags and getting all dramatic, thinking how you shouldn't throw these out because then you'd be 'inconveniencing' a filthy-rich piece of shit. Which is stupid. You aren't inconveniencing me _because_ I'm a filthy-rich piece of shit. I have all this shit in my house I don’t know what to do with. So let’s go, chop chop. Pidge holds her chopsticks open and waiting in his direction. “Where’s the rest?”

He feels his fingers clench tight to the wet cloth of his briefs. The idea of handing his dirty underwear over to a fourteen year old girl makes him feel weird.

Pidge seems to know what he's thinking, because she scowls. “God, men are such sensitive babies.” She holds open the garbage bag and raises it up. “Here, just toss it in yourself. Is that better?”

He ignores her mocking tone and balls up his soapy briefs in his hand. Then he hesitates again, which he's sure is only pissing her off even more. The unspoken question in his head is answered with an exasperated huff.

“Yes, Keith, I have unworn boxers you can wear.” Pidge shakes the garbage bag. “So, come on! Sometime in this day and age, please.”

Quickly, he tosses his briefs into the bag. It falls right in, and Pidge throws in the chopsticks before scrunching around the top of the bag in her hands. “Geez, only half a century later.” She rips off the face mask and throw it into the trash bag. “When you're done in here, get to the room three doors down and pick up what you need. Just don't wear all black again. It's the middle of July. Sometimes, you make me wanna suffocate just looking at you.”

She leaves him under a shower of hot water, anxious musings, and an unfortunate blanket of silence. He thinks back to her words as he runs shampoo in his hair, about how — if he were left alone — he’d be standing in the middle of the bathroom and decide on not throwing out his dirty clothes. That's not true, he thinks, why would he not want to dump his clothes out when they were stinking so bad? Those were his clothes, really _his_ clothes — he bought them a long time ago, back when he actually had a job — so he wouldn't really feel bad tossing them out. He wouldn't do something that like, stand in the middle of the bathroom after he was done showering and feel bad for himself for throwing out clothes that were his, especially not after he'd been soaking up his own vomit in those same clothes. He wouldn't do that.

A rich, floral scent clashes against the murky thoughts in his head that tells him — _yes you would, you do it all the time; don't you remember yesterday?_

 _But that was at Hunk's,_ he tells himself, _and it was about using Hunk’s bathroom and washer, not throwing out clothes_. Hunk, who works tirelessly day in and day out because he's had to abandon his dreams, shouldn't have to put up with him. He's rarely done a helpful thing for Hunk; he does all sorts of things for Pidge; he might even die one day while doing one of those things for Pidge.

_Yeah; yeah, about that — You think that makes it okay? Is that why you can't say no to whatever she asks you to do, even if it’s shady as fuck? Because then you won't feel bad about using up her water, taking her clothes, taking her money?_

But he wasn't taking anything; it was all earned. He worked for it.

 _Blood money,_ his head screams at him; _SHOT and MURDERED — that'll be you one day, just you watch; that'll be you someday, and then what does it matter whose shower you used?_

 _Exactly,_ he thinks as he finishes washing himself and turns off the water. _Exactly._

 

* * *

 

He makes it out of the room in new clothes that aren't his, and finds the room Pidge is in. He knows she's in there because he's been here countless times before _(second floor, fifth door from the right of the staircase)_. He also knows she's in there because there's a blue light coming from underneath the door. He stops in front of it and knocks. Before he can lift his knuckles off the door after the first knock, the door swings open and Pidge sticks her head out. She squints her eyes and looks him up and down. He sees the way her eyes linger on his dark blue shirt before staring morosely at his black jeans and he knows what she's going to say.

“Close enough,” she mutters, stepping inside.

He steps in, closing the door after him. Immediately, he's bathed in the soft blue glow coming from three of the five monitors; the other two are dark. A low, gentle hum of machines fills the room. The room is of moderate size, but dozens of machines — bulky, boxy things fitted beside slim, compact models — take up half the space. A large bookshelf cuts whatever's left in half, leaving only a small corner to the side for a desk that's crowded with two keyboards and three empty mugs. Two potted plants sit on either side of the biggest monitor, set on the left right against the wall. There’s a small cactus with a red flower with WISEASS scrawled in sharpie on the pot, and a little bonsai tree named CRACKHEAD. Littered all around WISEASS and CRACKHEAD are papers and papers and more papers. The papers are scattered everywhere; they're even on the floor, where he spies two more mugs resting by a fat stack of unknown papers. He clenches his hands at his side and stares at the mess on the… Everywhere, actually. **(2)**

“Don't touch anything,” Pidge says when she sees him eyeing the papers. “Everything is where it belongs.”

“Okay,” he says. He makes it a point to stare at the bookshelf instead. His blood freezes in his veins when he does, because the dead man’s stone is staring back at him.

Before he can say anything, a white cat with a dark face and bright, blue eyes slinks out from behind a thick book and lands on the one of the machines on the desk. He sighs a breath of relief; thank god, he's not crazy after all. **(3)**

The cat comes down from the bulky desktop and crinkles onto the table littered with papers, flicking its tail. Cautiously, it leans over the top of an empty mug and sniffs.

“Oh-no, you don't,” Pidge growls, making her way over. “Don't you _dare.”_

He watches the cat knock the mug off the table. It hit the floor and breaks.

Pidge throws her hands in the air. “Ugh, Lion! That was my favorite one!” She snatches a sheet of paper from the table and swats at her cat. It meows and darts away to the bookshelf again, running up the machines and squeezing into the small space between M TRAIN and WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSE. **(4)**

Leaving the cat to stretch behind her odd collection of books, Pidge goes back to where her alleged favorite mug had fallen. She picks it up in three pieces: the handle, the body, and the short, jagged triangle that split off from the crack down the side of the mug, right down the middle of a multi-colored robot warrior. He wonders why she still has something like that, then realizes that she's still fourteen — fourteen and running some kind of conspiratory web of underground activity. He wonders if her parents know; he wonders how much her brother does; how much Hunk, who knows everything about everyone living in California's Black Rock, really knows about his number one customer. **(5)**

He wonders how much Shiro knows.

Pidge puts the handle and the broken piece into her mug and sets it on the table. “Get a cat, they said,” she mutters under her breath as she shifts through the papers on her desk, “Cats are for introverts, they said. They won't be a bother, they said.”

He listens to the girl's mad ramblings and stands awkwardly to the side. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise suddenly; he knows the cat's eyes are on him, careful and steady, shining bright and blue in the dark. He channels all his energy into staring attentively at the floor, where Pidge is still talking irritably to herself.

“Where'd that card go? I put it right next to the goddamn Voltron mug…”

He watches her duck under the desk, then get on her hands and knees to the floor. He takes the chance of being in her blind spot to gently nudge a few sheets of paper on the floor to the left. All of them have the running head of _IN DEFENSE OF PLUTO_ at the top. _Is she in school?_ he wonders; _she actually goes to school?_ He expertly herds the sheets to a neater pile on the floor.

“Found ya, bitch!” cries Pidge. There's a dull thwack and another curse as she hits her head on the underside of her own desk as she gets up.

His foot is back to where it was by the time Pidge is turned back to him. She doesn't seem to notice how the papers on the floor have shifted. Instead, she heads right for him.

“Move,” she says, her gaze fixed on something behind him. He steps to the side, allowing her the space she needs. He spots a door right next to the the one he came through and watches her reaching down the front of her shirt and take out a key on a chain. She fits the key into the door-lock and turns it to open the door. The door opens to a small closet space, from where Pidge grabs a box on a shelf and slides the card in her hand through a notch on the top. It opens with a soft click and she fishes a second key from inside. She looks at it for a moment before scowling. “Wrong one,” she mutters, shoving the key into the box and shutting it. She tosses the item back into the closet and reaches for another.

He watches her open three more boxes and cursing up a storm before he sets his gaze back on the Pluto papers on the floor. There are three more pages that say _IN DEFENSE OF PLUTO_ on the top header. Slowly and quietly, he shifts the papers toward the pile he's made before. The entire time, the cat's blue eyes are on him.

“Fucking _finally,”_ Pidge says, climbing down from the shelf — _when did that happened?_ — and turning back to him. She kicks the door shut and approaches him.

He steps to the side and lets her pass, because he knows all too well how strange this little girl truly is when it came to keeping her possessions safe.

Pidge crouches by the slim desktop on the floor and sticks her key into the cabinet embedded into the wall right next to it. Then, she opens the top drawer and reaches her hand inside. When she pulls away, an unmarked manila envelope is withdrawn. This, she deposits into his awaiting hands. It's heavy, and the shape is uncomfortably familiar.

He knows without asking what's inside.

Pidge pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and blows the bangs out of her eyes. “Your contact’s waiting at a Starbucks on the corner of 26th and Wilshire. It’s the one on the corner, near the lot and across the park.” Pidge digs in her pants pocket and deposits a fifty into his hand. “Go inside the Starbucks and get me three cake pops — I don't care what kind. Also, look for a purple that stands out. That’s the descriptor I received.” **(6)**

He pockets the money carefully into his new pants and says nothing, digesting all of this information carefully.

“Payment is two-grand. You should get it immediately. If not, I'll call you so you can pick it up from her. Your payment is half of that, minus the cost of what you're wearing.”

At that, his hand drops down to anxiously finger the soft hem of his shirt.

Pidge snorts. “Relax, it's from Target. Or Wal-Mart. I don't remember.”

He knows she's lying. But what’s in the manila envelope is heavy enough to keep the guilt-ridden thoughts from floating back to his head.

 

* * *

 

It’s not quite across the park as Pidge said. That, or he wasn’t supposed to cross the mini lot the bus dropped him off at. Or the park itself.

He’s standing on Chelsea Avenue and staring at somebody’s house from across the street. None of the lights are on in the house. But there are lights on in the Jack in the Box next door. He can smell the thick, heavy scent of grease-fried chicken from across the street. It’s a scent that he would have found nauseating two years ago, back when he had the means to make all his meals by hand. Now, he found that he didn’t mind. It wasn’t appetizing, but found that he could understand why people were going in and out at 3 in the morning. He decides to go in himself and ask where the nearest Starbucks is. **(7) (8)**

Clenching both straps of his red Jansport backpack with his hands, he starts a steady pace to the end of Chelsea Avenue and comes face to face with WIlshire Boulevard. It’s not the Wilshire Boulevard he knows; this one is dead at night, with only a handful of cars going down the street and few people out and about. This is not his Wilshire Boulevard. Still, he feels his heart jump and his breath catch when he spies the white print of WILSHIRE BLVD on the green sign, all the way across the two-way street from where he stands, still on Chelsea Avenue. He can’t read the print clearly, here in the dark and standing so far away, but he recognizes the shape of the letters because that was home, once upon a time — 2619 Wilshire Boulevard; 380 by 420 square feet of space at $1,500 a month; just a few minutes away from Koreatown by bus, where the rest of his kind never seemed to leave. So he just kind of stands there, waiting. **(9) (10)**

For what? Does he expect the bus to come, right where he stands, to pick him up and take him home? To his old home? One with a real bathroom and a real bed and real walls and a real roof that wouldn’t leak except if the girls upstairs uses the sink for too long? Or to the home he hasn’t been to in years, the one trapped inside a military base in the middle of nowhere; the one his dad left and his mom died in; the one his uncle still probably lives in; the one his bank account is still tied to — the place his uncle had slapped him and told him that he was dead. Which one was it? Which one was he waiting for?

“Hey, uh, are you okay?”

Some girl with dyed hair and her friends stand a few steps away. They look his age, maybe; maybe older. They’re all staring at him, dark eyes on a dark face and dark curls, giving him steady, cautious looks. Like the cat; it looks at him like that all the time.

“He’s probably just drunk.” “Sólo vámonos, Vio.” **(11)**

Her friends whisper urgently to her, but ‘Vio’ stands and stares and waits.

His mind is still winding through all the homes he’s lost, so he’s not sure if she’s a part of all that or something else entirely. When he finally returns to Santa Monica, to Wilshire Boulevard — to _this_ Wilshire Boulevard; the _dead_ Wilshire Boulevard — she’s starting to walk away with her friends.

He calls them back. “Wait!”

All three of them turn and stare at him. One of them has her thumb on her phone and is looking sharply at him. The other girl has a hand on ‘Vio’s arm. ‘Vio’ just stares quietly at him, still waiting.

He feels weird again, but it’s a fearful kind of weird; the kind of weird you feel when you’re a guy on a bus or a train and your hand accidentally gets knocked into some girl’s butt and nothing happens and you’re afraid that someone will _think_ that something has happened. He drops his hands from the straps of his bag, sags his shoulders a little, and starts with an apology as his heart thuds in his chest. “Sorry, I just — I’m a little lost. I’m supposed to meet a friend at a Starbucks nearby. Can you tell me where that is?”

Two of the girls look at each other. But ‘Vio’ gives him a smile. “Sure,” she says, pointing a finger his way. “Just turn around and walk straight down Wilshire Boulevard. Pass the park to 25th street, and then keep going ‘til you get to 26th. There’s a Starbucks on that corner there.” She hesitates. “But that place doesn’t stay open this late. It usually closes at—”

He doesn’t hear the rest because he’s turned on his heel and is running down the street. He runs and he runs and he runs, feet thudding the pavement and taking him past the trees in the park, past the parked cars, and far, far away from the stares of the girls on Chelsea Avenue.

He hasn’t even thanked her, this ‘Vio’ girl, but he can’t be bothered to feel anything but _panic panic panic_ r i p p i n g and y a n k i n g any thoughts sprouting in the dry bed that is his mind because he knows that she recognizes him; he knows that she knows him.

She’s the girl that lived in the apartment above his, once upon a time.

 

* * *

 

There are a lot of crumbs next to the iced lemon pound cake in the display case at Starbucks. **(12)** **(13)**

That is the line of thought he chooses to fixate on as he stands in line waiting for his turn, because if it’s not that then it’s the fact that there are people crowded all around him and he doesn’t want to think about how there are just way too many people who need coffee at this godawful hour. Too many people; what are they all here for, really? Surely not coffee; not at four in the morning; what are they all here for?

They huddle in pairs or in threes, chatting away and laughing at something silly they say or hear or see — all of them young, hopeful, bright lights buried deep in caffeine-induced insomnia. There’s only a handful of singles here, settling by the tables like nesting birds, curled over their books and laptops and papers and rubbing at their eyes and gulping down fancy, overpriced coffee.

This is where the college kids are, hunching in front of laptops and typing away, some of them wearing sunglasses and headbands and all sorts of things to hide the way their faces have sagged from days sans rest. He feels a bit of jealousy watching them work; but then it’s gone when he watches one of them wiping at their eyes with coffee-stained sleeves and folding into themselves with the weight of academia and student debt piling high and heavy on their shoulders. Nobody seems to notice as this person breaks down in public, not even the person sitting right next to them. He watches this poor kid, plunging into a silent fit of tears in front of the whole world as not even a single soul comes to their aid; and he thinks about himself, early in the morning, this very morning, crying in a stolen boat in the middle of the night, and he wonders — Well, what’s the goddamn difference? We’re all the same, aren’t we? We’re all weak and alone, ain’t that right? Chin up, kid; keep calm and carry on; keep calm and march on; keep calm and cry on and on and on.

His turn at the counter comes not a second too soon; someone named Andrew takes his order of one birthday cake pop, one chocolate cake pop, and one salted caramel cake pop — and one tall Americano, for himself; not because he needs coffee, but because he wants to blend in; he wants to be another wallflower in this fucking crowd.

He waits for his Americano and looks around for “a purple that stands out” and can’t even find a purple hair-tie. There is nothing purple in the crowd; no scarves, shirts, jackets, coats, shoes, pants, bags — he starts to look at the walls, looking for purple in the decor, and sees only _DEUX DELICIOUS_ croissants and _IT’S BAAAACK! SMOKED BUTTERSCOTCH LATTES_ — _ICED OR HOT!_ on the chalkboard walls. His Americano is called out; he reaches for it and spots a new sign: _TRY OUR SMOOTH NEW FAV — OUR NEW CASCARA LATTE!_ Nope; still no purple in sight.

He stands against the wall in the back of the cafe, sipping Americano made from burnt espresso beans, and tries not to look weird as he eyes every article of clothing and personal possession each customer has in possession. He accidentally meets eyes with another man across the shop and he quickly drops his gaze before the man’s crooked smile can draw him in. Instead, he takes a look at the headlines of the _Los Angeles Times,_ hoping to look occupied and dull and all out of sorts. But the man is still staring; he can feel the man’s gaze still on him; he can feel the curiosity oozing from the stranger’s gaze, steady and patient like that goddamn cat. The words on the _Los Angeles Times_ jumble right before his eyes, garbling coherent headlines into a raving madness of nonsense: _BLACK ROCK BUY OUT NEW HEALTH CLINICS EMERGENCY CARE—_

The man gets up and starts to walk toward him.

His eyes stay trained on _EMERGENCY CARE._ He breath freezes in his lungs. He feels trapped.

He sips the Americano and thinks about what to do. The man is five steps away when he decides he’s going to leave; he’s going to walk right out of here and get back to the red house on Ocean Drive and tell Pidge, _“the drop didn’t happen; there’s been a mistake,”_ and then go home and sleep.

He turns around to do just that when he spots someone, pale with sun-streaked hair, sitting at a table and chewing gum as she reads from a book he’s still pretty sure can be used as a brick. It’s the girl from the register, he realizes, staring unabashedly at her like she was some sort of apparition that wasn’t supposed to be there. She seems to feel his stare, because, suddenly, she looks up.

She stops chewing her gum when she fixes her eyes on him. He sees recognition taking hold in her eyes; her eyes, which glittered an alien purple.

A purple that stands out.

He brushes past the man who was heading toward him and sits in the empty chair across from the pretty girl from Rolo’s shop. He stares at the fine print on the open page of her book — _“'uozᴉɹoɥ ǝɥʇ ɹǝʌo ɹɐǝddɐsᴉp sɹǝnɔsǝɹ ǝq-plnoʍ ɹᴉǝɥʇ pǝɥɔʇɐʍ sʎɐʍɐʇsɐɔ ǝɥʇ s∀”_ — and concentrates on decoding the text instead of figuring out how exactly he’s going to hand over the bag now without it coming off as weird now that he’s sure the man from before is watching with some kind of bewilderment or confusion or something. **(14)**

Luckily, it’s the girl who talks first. “Has the buyout affected your workplace?”

He gives her a blank look. He’s not sure if this means something else entirely, if he’s supposed to know that it’s supposed to mean something else entirely and say something back, or if it’s a real question he still doesn’t know the answer to. But the words “buyout” touch upon what he’s seen on the paper he was staring at before he ran here, and he’s got half a cup of watered-down espresso pumping caffeine in his system, so he feels extra daring today. He decides to just go for it.

“Not really. Or not yet, I guess. You?”

He feels like he’s in middle school Spanish with the way he’s speaking right now — _¡Hola! ¿Cómo está? Estoy genial. ¿Y usted?_

She sends him a coy smile as she responds. “Only with a few ice deliveries.”

He has to laugh at that. It shaves off a bit of the anxiety that he’s been desperately ignoring is there. But as quickly as it’s gone, it comes back, because now he’s wondering about the bag and the parcel in the bag, and how is he supposed to hand over his entire bag to her without it looking weird? He’s not used to a drop like this; he’s never had to do something like this before — usually, it was just, go to this place, find this face, drop this off and end the case. He’s never had to _talk_ to anybody before.

She’s the one who speaks again. “Is that for me?” she asks, keeping her coquettish smile. She laughs kindly and holds out her hand with a wink. “Thanks. You know I love my books.”

He spies the tightness in the corners of mouth that gives away her own discomfort. For one reason or another, it brings a twinge of relief into him. He hands the bag over. He watches the way her fingers curl over the strap of the bag, careful and tight. He sees the way she cradles the bag in her arms, as if she’s got the whole world stuffed inside that bag she’s got.

When she speaks next, it is utterly devoid of any coyness she’s shown off. Instead, it is quiet and solemn. “Rolo’s not doing so good. He’s gone and done something stupid, and he’s in a bit of a pinch right now… But he’s gonna be alright.” A fiery spark alights her alien eyes as she looks at him again. “I’m gonna make sure of that.”

When he sees that look in her eyes, he decides in that instant that he likes her; she’s his kind of girl; once upon a time, they could have been friends.

In the two short hours that follow, he learns that this girl’s name is Nyma, that she’s seventeen, that she likes miso pork ramen, that she loves Downton Abbey, that she wants to study space, and that payment was wired twelve hours ago.

He doesn’t learn what she’s bought from Pidge or why.

And he never wants to know.

 

* * *

 

He gets back to the red house on Ocean Drive and tells Pidge about the drop and the wire transfer. She’s eating her cake pops and doesn’t seem to be listening, but nods and says _“mmhmm”_ every now and then so he can’t really tell.

When he asks her to deposit his payment into his savings account, she snorts and says, _“You_ have a bank account?”

The look on her face when he tells her he’s had one for years, that he just hasn’t withdrawn anything, makes him feel like the walls are trying to squeeze into his head-space and crush him into a box.

He decides now is a good time to leave. He says goodbye, he says his thanks, and he lets her walk him downstairs. The cat is the first one at the door, tracking his every step with its bright, blue eyes.

As he steps out, he feels a tug on the sleeve of his new shirt. He turns around.

“You’re,” Pidge stops, pursing her lips and frowning, “You’re okay, right?”

This is not the first time she’s asking him this question. He gives her the same answer he’s always given.

“I don’t know.”

Pidge looks quietly at him. “You can always stay here, you know. There’s lot of room here. I don’t mind.”

The cat follows up with a purr, weaving between his legs and rubbing its head against him. It looks up at him with a steady gaze.

He had a cat, once upon a time. He wonders if it’s dead now.

He gently steps the rest of the way out and gives Pidge an awkward kind of smile. “I’ll think about it,” he says.

They both know he’s lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** I've been told that [Planet Fitness](http://www.planetfitness.com/) has been a place a lot of people go when they don't have a place to stay because the membership fee is cheap, it's open 24/7, and there are showers available for use.
> 
>  **(2)** [Cactus](http://www.canadianflowerdelivery.com/cactus.aspx) flowers symbolizes endurance and love that lasts through all things, no matter how difficult; reminiscent of maternal love. Additionally, the [Chinese elm tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm) symbolizes revolutionary hope and strength. WISEASS and CRACKHEAD were names I gave my plants (idfk what they were, tbh :V) and they died within 2 months because I forgot to water them. :'( 
> 
> **(3)** Pidge owns [a white siamese cat with blue eyes](http://www.catster.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/albino-cats-kittens-07.jpg).
> 
>  **(4)** [M Train](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24728470-m-train) has been a huge help in helping me regain my writing mojo. [Welcome to the Universe](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30009088-welcome-to-the-universe) is just an all-time favorite of mine :V
> 
>  **(5)** [This](https://ctl.s6img.com/society6/img/1GKMkkccIECSurnSqcvxLaF7IWc/h_550,w_550/coffee-mugs/small/right/greybg/~artwork/s6-0023/a/8982913_13360143/~~/voltron-vub-mugs.jpg) is the mug in question.
> 
>  **(6)** I have never had [cake pops from Starbucks](https://www.starbucks.com/menu/catalog/product?food=petites#view_control=product) before, but I've always liked the way they look.
> 
>  **(7)** Keith's approximate location can be found [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/1177+Chelsea+Ave,+Santa+Monica,+CA+90403/@34.0350376,-118.4800155,158m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sstarbucks+santa+monica,+CA!3m4!1s0x80c2bb4eba73fd8d:0x9ec999e9ce8fb894!8m2!3d34.0350418!4d-118.479447).
> 
>  **(8)** Because I live in NYC, I have no idea what [Jack in the Box](https://www.jackinthebox.com/) is like. I imagine it's like [KFC](https://www.kfc.com/)?
> 
>  **(9)** Keith's red Jansport bag can be found [here](http://www.jansport.com/shop/en/jansport-us/backpacks/superbreak--t501?variationId=9FL).
> 
>  **(10)** The address is to the [Wilshire Royale Apartments](https://www.apartments.com/wilshire-royale-apartments-los-angeles-ca/p43ch9s/) in Los Angeles, CA. I've never been to California, so all of this is just based on what I've dug up online.
> 
>  **(11)** “Sólo vámonos, Vio.” is "Let's go, Vio." in Spanish. 'Vio' is short for _Violeta_ , a name that means "purple" or "violet."
> 
>  **(12)** I've never had Starbucks' cake pops, but their [iced lemon pound cake](https://www.starbucks.com/menu/food/bakery/iced-lemon-pound-cake-lb) is a guilty pleasure of mine.
> 
>  **(13)** I've been listening to "[Sound of the City · Jazzy Boom Bap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKSzY7Dg-rA)" by Phoniks while writing the Starbucks scene. Throughout the mix, there are audio snippets of people talking about insomnia or having trouble sleeping, which I found fitting for writing about people in a coffeeshop at 4 AM in the morning.
> 
>  **(14)** This line is from Laura Hillenbrand's book, [Unbroken](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8664353-unbroken).


	4. Washed Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why couldn't he just live like everyone else?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~This is completely unedited and also, I'll slap up more notes/refs whatever another day, because I'm fucking TIRED from writing shitty chapter.~~ Chapter is edited now, and still shitty. But that's okay, I guess.

> _Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter_  
>  _Little darling, it feels like years since its been here_  
>  _Here comes the sun; here comes the sun_  
>  _And I say: it’s all right_  
>  **Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)**

 

 

 

He wakes up with the sun in his eyes and his skin on fire. He feels hot, and he doesn’t know why.

For a second, he thinks he’s sick. After all, he’s been in and out of the water, drowned like a rat drunk off the sea and god knows what else that was in there. He figures it’s okay; he’ll be okay; he’s gone through this before, he knows what to do — he knows what happens when you stay out too long in the sun, he knows what happens when you go without water for too long and what happens when you think the sea can suffice; he knows all that. He does, don’t worry, he’ll be okay; he’ll be fine, because today will be a good— no, today will be a _great_ day!

All his worrying is for nothing, because in the end, he finds out he’s not sick; he’s not sick at all — he’s just outside.

Outside? Why is he outside? That’s ridiculous, he shouldn’t be outside. He went right to sleep when he came back, he shouldn’t be outside; he should be _in_ side.

But, look! The sky’s up there! It’s blue! Clear, cloudless, and blue! He’s outside after all! He must not have gone inside.

But he did. He _did_ go inside; he knows he did, just like how he knows he’s not crazy, not now. He remembers feeling tired and wanting to go to sleep; he remembers wondering what’s happened to Rolo and then wondering, _why do I care? what should I care, I can’t do anything._ He remembers falling asleep inside, on the floor where his futon is supposed to be.

But the sky! It’s right there!

Did the roof blow off again? That happened last year, when a summer storm blew up the shore. Did the early morning bring another storm? Had the sea tried to take him this morning? He wishes it had. He wouldn’t have minded. _Hello,_ he would have said, _I know you, please take me away; somewhere far, far away._

But no, it’s none of that. He’s outside; he truly is. He can hear the waves, the familiar sound of water slapping in his ears and sounding too close for him to be anywhere but outside. More than that, he knows he’s in the goddamn fucking boat. Why is he in the boat? Why?

He blinks his eyes; the sun doesn’t go away. It doesn’t go away because there’s no fire inside his head; there’s no fire anywhere inside him. It’s outside; it’s all outside. The sun beats down on him from a clear blue sky and he realizes with a start — _shit, shit, shit; how far did he go?_ How far has the sea taken him?

He leaps up. The boat rocks and sways and churns his head, giving his brain a vicious swirl of panic and hunger and thirst and cold, cold fear, and he almost cries because he’s not that far from the shore; the shore is right there, a delightfully yellow line in the horizon. _Goodbye!_ it says to him; _are you ever coming back?_

 _Never,_ he wishes. _Soon,_ he hopes.

He sits in the boat, letting the water carry and drift him further from shore. If he tries hard, he thinks he can see his sorry shack on the edge of the water; it should be the spot right in the middle of the black speck right there on the shore — the black speck of jagged rocks that's keeping him locked up tight inside his own world. He can't figure out if he wants to stay in his own world anymore. He wants to leave; he wants to stay; he wants to be himself.

What does it mean, to be himself? He doesn't even know who he is yet, even after five years at sea; he doesn't know who he is. Who is he? Is he the homeless man who steals ice from the corner store? Is he the sad, pathetic lost boy still looking for a job? Is he the family gay kicked out of his own home? Is he the troubled friend come on hard times — the one who constantly needs to be bailed out? Is he just stark-raving crazy? He's not crazy, is he? He may be a lot of things — a lot of messed up, screwed up, fucked up things — but surely he's not crazy.

But what if he _is_ crazy? Yeah, what if? He must be, just a teeny bit — _crazy, that is_ — because why else is he seeing someone else's face in his, someone else's eyes in his, someone else's reflection in the water where his should be? Why else would he being seeing someone else? Why else would he see—

THE DEAD MAN IS IN THE WATER.

He chokes on a scream, nearly toppling backwards and into the water, because suddenly an entire face — _THE DEAD MAN'S FACE_ — comes out of the water.

His gaze is filled by a curious pair of eyes that hold the color of a stormy sea. They shine boldly against a rich, amber glow on warm, tawny skin. A copper tinge threads through short, brown hair. Soft, dark brows, furrowed deeply, frame a straight nose that leads to smooth, full lips. The sharp, angled cut of his jaw comes to a point at his chin, which juts outward with a challenge, as if he is demanding — _What're_ you _looking at?_

With a slow burn of realization, he comes to the notion that the dead man is not only _not dead_ — he is beautiful.

The dead man grins, slow and cocky and full of sharp teeth. Then, the dead man speaks. “ね え、お前の顔の種類は、女の子の顔のように見えます。ちょっとかわいい。” **(1)**

He's so shocked by the fact that the dead man is ~~_beautiful_ _not dead_~~ speaking to him that, at first, he doesn't know how to react. Then, he remembers how. Carefully, he reaches over with a hand to the ice box at his side. He takes a deep breath, and — “I’m _Korean,_ you fucker!”

He throws fistfuls of ice cubes. Each throw misses the dead man, who moves swiftly out of the way. Suddenly, a blue fin, large and shimmering in the sunlight, emerges from the sea to slap against the surface of the water. He doesn't even feel the water that splashes all over him because he is so trained on that glittering tail-fin, a thing of legends, and _oh,_ he thinks as all the blood drains from his face, _oh god, it's real; this is real._ He freezes, barely hearing the dead man speak _(“E kala mai, e kala mai! I mai la, 'e kala mai!'”_ ). His arm, reeled back, remains in the air, hand fisting and curling around chunks of melting ice. His fingers are hot and numb, just like how his brain feels hot and numb, melting and freezing under the intensity of the dead man's eyes.

Without warning, the dead man rises from the sea. He drops the ice in his hand and throws himself away, his back smacking painfully against the side of his boat as he stares wide-eyed at the dead man, who has risen from the sea to lean on the other side of his boat.

Sunlight hits the dead man's shoulders, a golden shine dancing over them to trickle down a strong chest and well-toned, hairless arms. A glittering blue stone — the one that had cursed him; the reason he almost drowned in the dead of night — sparkled proudly against the dead man’s chest. Wide hands with long, webbed fingers — _webbed! fingers!_ — close clumsily over the metal rim running atop the side of his boat. One hand slips off and returns, only to slip off again. The dead man shifts to lean an arm on the metal rim instead, and the hand that has failed to close over the boat turns over to crook an index finger back and forward between them. This happens once, twice, three times, before a breathy sigh leaves the dead man's lips. The dead man speaks again. _“Hele mai maanei, pela au i hiki ike kou elelo.”_ **(2)**

He knows enough to figure out that the dead man wants him to come closer. But he stays put, because he doesn't trust the dead man — _the dead man doesn't trust you either; YOU STOLE FROM HIM_ — and he doesn't trust himself. He's crazy, after all; absolutely crazy.

The dead man heaves another sigh, expression falling flat as the glittering tail-fin breaks the surface of the water to slap against it. The dead man is impatient. “Sometime in this day and age, _nani kāne,”_ says the dead man, and then; “빨리, 빨리.” **(3)**

His heart thuds with maddening speed; He can feel his blood flowing to his face again. He can also breathe. And then he, too, speaks. “어떻게 한국 말을 할수 있어요?” His own speech is halting but careful, nowhere near the ease with which the dead man speaks. But his tongue remembers how to shape the sound of the syllables he has not used in five years and his heart beats firmly in his chest as something he thinks is pride. In what, exactly? That he stuttered through his own language to ask a foreign creature how it can speak it better? **(4)**

The dead man laughs, tail-fin swishing in and out of the water, and leans forward with eyes full of mirth. “You say you are Kōlea? Have you lost your own tongue, _nani kāne?”_ **(5)**

He throws ice chips at the dead man. The ice misses when the dead man moves to the right, letting them pelt the sea instead. Missing again irritates him; he starts to feel angry. The dead man does not.

“Stop that,” shouts the dead man, laughing and splashing with his tail.

He doesn't. This time, he digs both hands into the melted slush remaining in his ice box. Before he can toss the frozen mess at the dead man — _the creature,_ he corrects; _it's not a dead man, it’s never been_ — a giant wave crashes on top of him and suddenly, he can't breathe.

 _I'm drowning!_ he thinks, and his brain fills with panic _(fear)_ panic _(terror)_ panic _(regret)_ panic _(relief)—_

But then he hears laughter in his ears and air fills his lungs and oh, he's not drowning after all, he's just… drenched. In his own boat. Water sloshes in the bottom of the boat, just like the night he _did_ drown, the night he lay in his boat filled with water from the sea and water from his stomach and water from everything else.

A cold, wet touch at his arm makes his whole body jerk away and freeze. His heart thuds painfully as he sees two hands — _its fingers are webbed!_ — come closer and closer to him and grab his face and pull him forward. He stumbles on his way down — _the creature is strong!_ — and knocks his hand and his knees against the side of the boat and the pain sings a shaky tune through his bones as his eyes fill up completely with a dark, dark blue, as dark as the depths of the sea, and his forehead is forced to touch against the creature's, whose skin is cold and clammy and wet, whose eyes spill over with keen interest, and the creature, whom he does not trust — _he doesn't trust it! it doesn't trust him!_ — closes its eyes and quietly breathes in and—

Water, silver, blue; he sees a distant castle of what seems to be made of silver shining in the murky depths of the ocean — a large shadow passes overhead; it is a whale, and it swims to him, slowly; its movements hypnotic and graceful like a dancing snake — he sees a great man with flowing hair as white as the clouds and skin rich and deep like the finest dark oak, wielding a golden scepter — he sees countless other creatures, all with shimmering scales and sweeping tail-fins that come in every color; some he's never even seen before — he sees a beautiful girl with eyes an alien purple and orange fins around a golden face; her shapely body is covered with delicate fins — he sees another darker figure, lurking in the distance — he sees a terrible storm of blood floating gore in the sea; it stains the castle walls and drains its shining glory — a fierce-looking creature with white hair and red marks on its young face herds a colorful crowd to a dark coral cave — the fierce creature reaches for him and misses; terror strikes its face — black water, with powerful, rolling currents, push him aside; his ears fill up with an echoing _WHIIIIRRRRRR;_ he sees a heavy shadow overhead, and then pain, PAIN, P Ai n — he feels it, a blinding pain in the side of his head, and then—

He blinks once, and it's all over. There is the distant sense of regret and shame, as if he has interrupted a private, personal scene of grief. It stays rooted at the forefront of his head, swimming in familiar, dark memories he doesn't remember withdrawing. But his head can’t wrap around it, not when there’s a stricken gaze, frozen in time, piercing his eyes. He wonders, whose eyes are these that are so clear? He sees so much in them; what clarity they possess, what depths they reach — each eye a world of emotion that spills over into him. He sees that gaze, sees whom it belongs to — _the creature's!_ — and wonders, _why does the creature look at me like that, with such pity?_ Then he feels the regret and shame again, seeping from dark memories hidden within the layers of a strange dream, tucked between the folds of a fairytale gone wrong. He peers into each and every one of those layers, however briefly, and he _f r e e z e s_ hot and cold, just like before, when the realization of what has just transpired between them hits him like a frozen wave in the middle of winter.

Worse, still, is when the creature speaks. “You have endured many hardships, _nani kāne,”_ it says, its hands still holding his face, its touch as soft and as tender as its voice.

He draws back with the sun in his eyes and his skin on fire. He feels hot, and he knows why; he is livid. Hot anger pours out of him like a rushing wave. “Did you just — Were you just inside my head?”

The creature stills. “I meant no harm. I swear to you—”

“What did you see?” he seethes, and once he starts he cannot stop; “What did you do? How did you even— How _dare_ you? How dare you just get into somebody’s head when you— You don't even know me, and you think you can just—” In a rare moment of clarity, he stops himself, drawing in a deep breath, and closes his eyes. “This isn’t real,” he tells himself, breathing in and out slowly, “this isn’t real.”

He hears the creature protest. “But I—”

“Shut up!” He hurls whatever he can curl his fingers around. _(dirty slush, net weights)_ “This isn’t real! You aren’t real!” _(rotten shellfish meat, spare sinkers, his phone—)_ That last one makes him freeze the moment it slips from his hands. He snaps his eyes open and regret fills his heart as he watches the phone sink into the water. To him, the phone’s not just his link to Pidge. To him, it’s the last thing that ties him to the rest of the world without actually tying him to the rest of the world. And now, it’s gone forever, sinking down into the depths of the sea.

For a brief moment, he considers diving in after it. He doesn’t.

But the creature does. It leaves his boat, diving head-first into the sea and sending his boat rocking, rocking, rocking from the force of the creature launching back into the water; its tail-fin splashes the sea into his boat, already filled, into his face, already wet, onto his clothes, already soaked, and disappears, leaving nothing but silence and calm, rippling water in its wake.

It’s as if the creature had never appeared, as if it had been nothing but a well-imagined dream — a thing of legends; it's as if he were, truly and honestly (maybe, just a little bit), crazy, after all.

That's what he tells himself, his boat roaring back to shore, even as he hears a voice shouting in the back of his head — _”Wait! Come back! Did you not want this?”_

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

_he's nine years old and he cries in a sea of black; his mother solemnly holds his hand; his father is nowhere to be found — he's eleven years old and he gets home from school and sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and — he's fourteen years old and he finds somebody who puts the smile back on his face and fills the bleeding, gaping hole in his chest and — he's fifteen and he comes back to his house stinking of weed and he can't breathe and his mom can't breathe and he can't find his phone and he can't find her pulse and — he's sixteen and he hears "i'm sorry, i don't feel the same way" and the hole in his chest bleeds again and — he's eighteen and he doesn't go to class and he doesn't call home and he drowns in work school bills food work bills food work bills work work work bills work — he's nineteen and he comes home and it's dark and he can't find his mom anymore and he says "I'm gay" and he gets hit punched kicked GET OUT NOBODY WANTS YOU BACK YOU'RE A DISGRACE — he's twenty and he can't hold a job and he can't breathe sometimes a lot of the time most of the time — he's twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five and he lives in an abandoned cabin that almost gets washed out by the sea and he finds food sometimes and he thinks he's killed a guy, once, all by just giving him a piece of paper and he steals a boat from a dead old man and he fishes in the sea and he doesn't need his family to beat himself up anymore cause he does it himself and he steals from a dead man in the sea and—_

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

MARCY is drowning. There's water in the bilge, and he's pretty sure there's water in the outboard engine, too. He hears it sloshing in the boat as he shoves it toward the dock by his shack. Waves climbing up the shore slap against his boat and spill inside; he doesn't know what to think, watching the water knocking around his knees this close to his home because the waves shouldn't be this far upshore; they've never been this far upshore. Is there a storm coming?

When he gets the boat out of the water, he turns on the bilge pump and watches the water chug out of the drain and spill into the sand. He takes a brief moment to look out at the ocean, how it spits up wave after wave that seems to swallow half the beach. He looks at the skies, blue and clear and cloudless. He looks back at the ocean, at how the waves stretch far past the berm to stake claim on what used to be dry beach. He looks at the wooden dock next to the shack, which now isn't too far from the water. _It's coming,_ a voice tells him as water from a rocking wave starts trickling back to sea. _What's coming?_ he asks. A wave rushes forward; the voice gives him silence. He watches the waves for a few more minutes before turning back to the boat.

He turns back to the water now dripping from the drain of the bilge, counting the droplets as he tries to figure out how long it would take him to drag the boat through the sand and onto the flatter slabs of black granite at the edge of the cove. He has to do it, if he wants to set the boat at an angle in order to lower the outdrive and get the rest of the water out. _What a drag,_ he thinks; _such a drag._ He's cleaned the boat just hours before, in the dead of night, and now he's gotta do it again. He's supposed to clean it again — _and again, and again, and again_ — but he doesn't, not even when the mustached man told him, _“Love her every day, else you'll find she'll meet her end!”_ He's not really sure if the man was referring to his boat or not. **(6)**

He doesn't drag the boat to the rocks; he's exhausted _(when is he not?)_ and he's gotta go see Hunk before the sun finds it way straight overhead; it's a little ways far from that point, enough to let him know it's not noon yet, which means _Brok da Mout_ isn't yet filled with hungry beach-goers. He should go now and come back; yeah, before the rest of the town gets there first.

He's got nothing for Hunk today, but he’s gotta go see him because he needs to use a phone; he needs to tell Pidge — _Pidge, I’m sorry, I lost the phone you got me, I'll get a new one and text you soon; also, you were right all along — I lost my mind at sea, just like you always said I would._

He can do that; he can go to Hunk and ask to use his phone _(he'll pay him back one day, for everything the big man's done for him; he swears it)_ and call Pidge like a normal person and have a conversation, however short, like a normal person would, and then he'll go into town with the money he's got in the shack _(he's got enough saved; he's made sure of it)_ and the new clothes he's got on and he'll go to a Target and get a throw-away phone; and if anybody asks, he's just traveling from some place in some country and yeah, he's been to this place and that place around here and oh, sure, he'll check out that restaurant sometime this week before he leaves, thanks for the rec.

He can do all that; everyone else can, so why can't he?

_Because everyone else has a job and a home and a family to turn to; you don't have anything — you even lost your mind, remember? You went and lost your damn mind, the only thing you'had left. Good job, kid; good fucking job._

The wind turns cold as he sits in the sand next to his boat, thinking furiously — He _can_ do this, he can; he's done this all before, back when he was living _(his hands are shaking; he can't feel the sun but still he's sweating)_ in a square room with real walls and a real roof _(he hears the waves washing the shore; he hears the gulls crying overhead)_ and had a job and a dream and paid the bills three meals a day — he _wanted_ to eat back then, or maybe he didn't and he tricked himself into thinking he wanted to; then why couldn't he do that now? Why couldn't he do all of that now? Why couldn't he be normal like he was before? Why couldn't he just live like everyone else?  **(7)**

He sits there in the hot sand, feeling cold and sweating bullets, with his head between his knees and hands fisting in his hair. The whole time he's there, the ocean keeps sending wave after wave up to the shore, as if it were trying to pull him back to sea.

 

* * *

 

By the time he's got MARCY across the shore to one of the flat rocks at the edge of the cove, the sun is already hot and bright overhead. He moves the outdrive up and down a few times, waiting for water to stop trickling out of it, when something dark and familiar washes up on shore. He stops where he is by the boat and stares at the way the sun hits the ugly thing that's half-buried in wet sand.

It's his phone.

He doesn't go to it immediately; there's no point — it’s not gonna work anyway; it's trash, now; he's still gonna have to get a new one. But he gets to it anyway, rolling up his pants, mostly dried from the heat of the sun, and walks through rolling waves to get to the useless phone. He picks it up, straightening back up and shaking off water and globs of wet sand from the it as he wonders if there's a place that'll give him a discount or something on his next purchase if he recycles this there. _Maybe,_ he thinks; _maybe not. Do stores even take in water-damaged phones?_ He has no idea.

Water sloshes around his ankles; the next wave carries with it a flash of color. He looks down. At his feet is a bulbous conch shell with a strong flared lip and a pointed spire. A light dusting of fawn coats the conch's periostracum, and the aperture shines with a bright, velvety pink. It's a pretty shell, in perfect condition; so rarely did he see unmarred shells wash up on the beach, and so little is his interest in seashells aside from a remote feeling of _"oh, that's nice,"_ that all he does at first is stare at the conch in the sand as the ocean ripples and whispers gently in the background. Briefly, he wonders how much it would be if he was to have it sold. Not much, that much is certain; but still, it's quite the pretty shell — he's sure some collector on the beach would pay a few dollars for it. **(8)**

He takes too long in considering it; the next wave brings the sea to wrap a firm hold on the conch, and drags it back to sea. He drops the useless phone into the water and runs in after it, splashing water and getting his pants wet again. He's able to snatch it out of the water before it goes too far, and holds the conch in his hands as if it were some great treasure; and it is, to someone else out there with five dollars to spare. He turns it around in his hands, checking for any cracks or chips along the creamy outer layer, running his fingers over the horns adorning the spire. His traces his fingers over the inner lip of the shell, the texture glassy and smooth to the touch. A childish part of him wants to lift the shell to his ear, close his eyes, and listen to the waves. But how silly is that, to search for the sea in a place where the sea is already before him. It's quite silly, he knows. He does it anyway.

He brings the shell up to his ear and almost closes his eyes; and it's an 'almost,' because he _can't_ close his eyes, not anymore, because right now he's too busy staring at a distant figure in the sea he was so certain was just a product of his own mind.

The beautiful creature from his moment of madness is there, out beyond his reach; floating above the gentle waves and looking earnestly his way. The creature raises a hand out of the water; light catches in the droplets that fling from his hand, and, tentatively, the creature waves.

 _This is it_ , he tells himself as his blood runs cold, _he's lost his mind — he's stark-raving mad._ Slowly, he raises his own hand and waves back. Because why not? He's lost his mind anyway; why not just play along and stay mad? It doesn't matter what he does anymore — he's crazy.

The creature stills for half a second. And then, the sun is in his eyes again, because a brilliant smile breaks out on the creature's face as it starts to wave at him in earnest, its whole arm arching back and forth as the creature grins. Then, it jumps clear out of the water to dive head-first back to sea, giving him a perfect glimpse of the creature's glittering scaled body and large tail-fin before it all disappeared with a giant splash.

The ocean ripples and whispers gently in the background, waves washing fervently against the sandy shore. He finds, once again, that it’s as if the creature had never appeared, as if it had been nothing but a dream, a legend, a wish—

And then he sees a shimmering blue beneath the water moving rapidly his way.

The light shines brighter and brighter, moving like a shot of lightning. He can't take his eyes off it; he can't move away; he can't do anything but watch. His chest hurts from the relentless way his heart trashes about; his lungs don't know what to do with the sudden intake of breath he's drawn; his entire body has shut down — he's reduced to doing nothing but stand there with his feet in the sand and watch a torpedo of light heading right for him.

Suddenly, the light begins to fade. The movement in the water starts to still, and slowly, the creature appears once more, its body emerging from the water in pieces: bright, blue eyes; a beautiful, smiling face; then its neck; broad shoulders; a strong chest, and the glittering stone he threw back into the sea; a narrow waist—

The creature, whom he swears to himself _was_ indeed a _creature,_ walks out of the water and onto the beach not as a creature, but as a man — a very real, very handsome, very _naked_ man.

His eyes drop automatically to the endowment between the creature's legs, to the legs themselves, and then back to the ~~creature's~~ man's genitals, hanging and bare, with hardly a thought of shame because his mind has scraped away all thoughts and judgment in a wild, desperate attempt to make sense of this new event by taking it all in as is.

The ~~creature~~ man hardly seems to mind his blatant staring, for all ~~it~~ he does is walk right up to him with eager eyes, an open smile, and a greeting of, “You will accept me now, yes?”

Nothing intelligent comes out of his mouth. “Are you— What exactly are you— _How_ exactly are you— A-Are you really a— a—” The smile starts to fade from the ~~creature's~~ man's face as he fumbles over his words. Finally, in desperation, he gestures wildly to the man's lower body. “Why are you _naked?!”_ he exclaims, the only string of coherent thought his mouth can verbalize.

At this, the man raises a brow. “The ocean is generous, but even she has limits to what she can give.” Then, the man grins. “Not to worry, _nani k_ _ā_ _ne_ — I, for one, do not reach my limit for many, many rounds.” The man winks.

His mouth drops open. “Are you— Are you hitting on me?!”

The man gives him a questioning look. “But I have yet to touch you.” The man hesitates. “Or… Is that an invitation? If that was your intent, I wish not to engage. Certainly with no offense to your culture — It is merely the case that I stand firmly against hurting my partners, even if it is a customary start to your way of courtship.”

A million things swirl dizzily through his mind. His grip on the conch shell tightens. “My— My _what?!”_ Vehemently, he shakes his head. “Forget it. I don't— I think you're misunderstanding something. I'm not— I'm not _courting_ you, I'm— I don't even know you!”

The man delivers a cocky, lopsided grin. “If you wanted to get to know me, you should have just said so, _nani kāne.”_

He's half a second away from knocking the ever-loving shit out of this man — mystical or not — when a voice hesitatingly calls him from behind.

“Uh, Keith? Am I— Am I interrupting something?”

He freezes. Hunk's voice is unmistakable.

“Is this a bad time to see you? I, uh, came thinking that maybe we could have lunch together — I brought some food and stuff — but I can, uh, I can come back later if you want.”

He is quick to respond. “Hunk, this isn't—”

The man from the sea interrupts him. “You have caught us at a most inconvenient time, my friend. But your luck fares well, for I am in the mood to receive guests. Come and join us!”

“Oh, uh, sure, I guess—”

Furiously, he cuts Hunk off. “There is no 'us'!” he shouts at the man from the sea, who arches an eyebrow and gives him a baffled look. Seeing the man's open, expressive face makes something flare hot inside him, and before he knows what he's doing, he's throwing the conch down before turning and marching to the black rocks surrounding the cove.

“Keith?” Hunk starts, “Where are you going?”

“Getting away!” He climbs over the rocks and even past Hunk, who he finds had been halfway down already before spotting them.

“But what about your friend?”

“He's not my friend!” he snaps, getting to the top and turning to face the man from the sea, who had picked up the conch shell and was holding it in his hands. “You,” he hisses, “You stay away from me!” He ignores the wide-eyed look the man sends him and jumps over the black cliffs to slide the rest of the way down to the other side where the rest of the world was.

He runs blindly through a crowded beach, with the sun hot on his face and roar of the ocean in his ears and hates himself because he can't get the look on the man's face out of his head, because he's thrown a tantrum at what was probably just a nice stranger trying to find a friend in a big world, because he's acted like a child in front of Hunk, the greatest guy in the world, and because he knows why he's like this — he knows why he can't just live like everyone else; it's because he pushes everyone away and then rips himself apart for being an asshole until there's nothing of himself left.

He runs and runs and runs until he can't run anymore, until he falls on the shore on his face and he lets people pass him by asking _"hey, are you okay?"_ and tells them all to fuck off while screaming in his head: _SOMEBODY PLEASE TALK TO ME; ANYBODY; JUST STAY HERE AND TELL ME I'M GONNA BE OKAY!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** _ね え、お前の顔の種類は、女の子の顔のように見えます。ちょっとかわいい。 **JAPANESE;**_ it translates to: "Hey, your face looks kind of like a girl's. It's kinda cute."
> 
>  **(2)** I originally was going to create a language for the mermaids that Lance comes from and based it strongly off Polynesian language. But after reading the myths belonging to the people indigenous to Hawaii, I decided to stick more to their culture than first planned because of their strong ties to the ocean.
> 
>  _E kala mai, e kala mai! I mai la, 'e kala mai!' **‘ŌLELO;**_ it translates to: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I said 'I'm sorry'!"  
>  _Hele mai maanei, pela au i hiki ike kou elelo. **‘ŌLELO;**_ it translates to: "Come here, so i can know your tongue."
> 
>  **(3)** _nani kāne **KOREAN;**_ it translates to: "pretty boy"
> 
>  **(4)** _빨리, 빨리. **KOREAN;**_ it translates to: "Hurry up."  
>  _어떻게 한국 말 을 아세요? **KOREAN;**_ it translates to: "How do you know how to speak Korean?"
> 
> To demonstrate their fluency, I've chosen to have Lance speak informally and Keith have a mix of formal structure with awkward wording. 빨리, 빨리 (bali, bali) is a really casual way to tell someone to hurry up. You'll see it being used only by people speaking to someone who is younger or holds a lower position than you do. 
> 
> The reason why I gave Keith a formal structure is based on a speech pattern I noticed Koreans who aren't completely fluent often use. The tendency for them is to structure the sentence around formal cues (with certain endings and whatnot) because these are easily identifiable, but the endings are off in the way that they aren't completely formal yet casual. Also, the wording he uses isn't typical in formal speech; Keith takes informal wording and uses formal endings to make it _sound_ formal. What ends up happening is that, to a native/fluent speaker, the sentence sounds butchered and weird, even if it technically makes sense.
> 
>  **(5)** _Kōlea_ is "Korean" in ‘Ōlelo.
> 
>  **(6)** I learned the many steps on how to keep a fucking boat clean, drained, and… something else. I can't remembered. It's on [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYVic4S3p4s).
> 
>  **(7)** The stylistic narrative used in the first half of this paragraph is inspired by [Raylou's writing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7442665/chapters/21567755), because I get sick of my own way of writing sometimes and search out better ways to phrase things.
> 
>  **(8)** Used [this site](http://www.shells-of-aquarius.com/conch_shells.html) to find the proper terminology in describing parts of the shell. [According to some traditions and beliefs](https://seastarsmermaidscove.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/day-21-sea-shells-their-meanings-and-magick/), the conch shell is used to aid in the resolution of problems that form as a result of miscommunication.
> 
> Also, I found out via a quick google search that conch shells can sell anywhere from $25 to $100+. Apparently, it depends on the size, luster, type, and a bunch of other variable, including the willingness to throw away your life for some sea-critter's dead, abandoned home.


	5. Here Comes the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wahine what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This monster is over 12K words and I almost L O S T I T when AO3 kept spitting out "lol endnotes can only be 5000 characters in length :3c" and I just faoisdjfkasiufhajkd 
> 
> :)

> _Don’t swim tonight, my love_  
>  _The tide is out, my love_  
>  _Malcolm’s curse haunts our family **(1)  
>  ** _ **The Ocean (The Velvet Underground)**

 

 

 

\---

The sky is littered with streaks of color as the ocean pulls the sun down from its throne. Heaven's son leaves bloody tracks as it slips slowly to the depths of the sea. Somewhere, above it all, is the pale face of the moon. It keeps its waxing gaze on the quiet way the sun drowns itself in its murky waters, the surface of the ocean changing colors as it swallows the child still burning with shame and anger.

Under the reddening sky sits a large man with a soft, stocky build and rich, burgundy skin set alight with a golden glow from the radiance of the setting sun. He sits on the sand beside the sinking wooden port, facing the sea, and looking as if he has all the time in the world — which he does not; the big man, though he may say otherwise, is a busy, busy man.

This is what he comes home to: a view of the slouched backside of this gentle giant; a small backpack resting on a meaty thigh, unzipped and open; a half-eaten sandwich gripped in two large hands, dripping a coconut-butter sauce the color of buttermilk onto a crumpled yellow handkerchief; and an open can of mango-pineapple soda set neatly in a groove in the sand to his right. He stands atop the jagged rocks, the blazing sun streaming its hellish light into his eyes, a warm, salty breeze tickling his face, and the distinct cries of the gulls echoing overhead.

It's strange to see the cove with someone else in it, even if that someone else has been here quite a few times before. He wonders if this is what Hunk sees when he comes to visit — a quiet, picturesque scene, a welcome distraction from the crowded boardwalk restaurant always filling with cityfolk never failing to ask: “ _Hey, are you really Hawaiian? Say something in Hawaiian! Oh, wow, that's so cool!”_ He's never once seen Hunk decline one of those ridiculous requests; Hunk always gives a well-practiced, warm smile and says, “ _Mahalo aku ia oukou no ka ai ana maanei”_ — _Thank you for eating here._

He climbs down the rocks, repeating that one word in his head — _mahalo, mahalo, mahalo_ — thank you. He's ready to say it as his feet touches off the granite cliffs and sinks into the sand. Then he forgets to say it when Hunk looks over his shoulder with a smile that blooms right across his face. Something fills his chest as Hunk grins toothily, sticking his hand into his open bag and pulling out a giant sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

“I was hoping you'd come back,” he says, waving him over with the sandwich in hand. “Come, it's fresh! I went back to the restaurant and got another one. Lance ate the first one. I think he’s addicted now.”

He stays where he is, standing somewhere between the rocks and the big man, and stares at him. “Lance?”

“Well, actually, it's La'ans. But Xian heard it wrong and thought he said Lance. I think he likes it though.”

His feet are rooted to the ground. Which is weird, because roots can't take hold in the sand. He casts a quick glance around and spies no one else but them. He eyes the cabin door. “Is he still here?”

“Here? Nah. I took him home. He's crashing with me for a while.”

Fear fills up faster than the water that fills the one-room shack in his dreams. “What?” The exclamation comes out dry and shocked, as if he'd choked it out of his throat with his own hands. He waves away a dreadful whisper lurking in his head — _(this is it; you're being replaced)_ — in favor of bringing strips of rational thought into this whole situation. “You're letting a complete stranger stay with you? And you're not there to supervise him? What if he steals something? Or—Or burns the whole place down? What if—”

“Relax, Keith. I've got Xian to stay with him.”

Knowing that a nineteen year old flake was keeping what was probably an ancient mystical being company did nothing to ease his concerns. “You can't even trust Xian to chop an onion without you standing there,” he says, thinking of all the times Xian's been duped just by a flashy smile and a pretty face. “What if something happens? And you don't even know this guy. What if—What if he's dangerous?”

At that, Hunk laughs. “Lance? Nah, I don't think so. I don't get that kinda vibe from him. Xian's probably got more bite than he does.”

He recalls the rows of needle-sharp teeth he's seen inside _the dead man's_ _the creature's_ the man’s mouth. “I still don't think—”

Hunk interrupts him. “Keith, the guy doesn't even have a pair of pants to his name. He's gonna need some help. You of all people should understand.”

He does. He does, and that's the point. He knows this game; he knows it all too well. This is how it begins; it begins like this: a reasonably well-to-do, well-meaning kind of guy too good for himself sees an acquaintance struggling to get by; the guy extends a helping hand, and the guy gets attached and can't help but stand by even when the numbers probably don't add up _(the kid’s capable, the kid’s smart, the kid can do things);_ somebody else comes along and takes the guy away because hey, look, the first kid's doing alright, sort of, he's making money, sort of, he'll be okay — but this one, this new kid, he's not doing so well and, you know, you gotta help those in need, right? So, so long, farewell, see ya — call me when you can start going out for drinks and everything; you'll be fine on your own, yeah? You'll be fine. You will.

Hunk must have taken his silence as guilt, because the next thing Hunk says he knows is supposed to be reassuring.

“Hey. It’s okay, man. I know you didn't mean it that way. “

 _It's okay,_ he wants to say back, _I know you didn't mean it that way either._ Instead, he just crosses the rest of the way to Hunk and sits next to him. He doesn't take the sandwich that's been lowered to the backpack; the smell of food nauseates him, and he quickly tucks it back into the bag.

“Aren't you hungry?” Hunk asks him.

It makes him feel guilty, because Hunk said that he went back to the restaurant to get him a new sandwich. Which means he’s had to climb up all those rocks, climb back down, walk through the long stretch of sand, cross the massive parking lot, walk down the boardwalk, cut through the crowd of customers at the patio of his restaurant, introduc Lance (or is it La'ans?) to Xian, grill up some fish in coconut milk and butter, with onions and bay leaves and cilantro for flavor, wrapped that up in some freshly-baked ciabatta, and hike all the way back to an empty shack and sat in the sand for... for forever, probably.

But he can't bring himself to touch the sandwich, even if was probably his last. The thought of being replaced (if he even was being replaced — _you are; you've been replaced before, don't you remember? that's why you had to leave that fucking one-room hellhole)_ gave his stomach a sickening twist that made him feel like throwing up. But there was nothing to throw up, and he was going to keep it that way, because throwing up sucks.

“I ate already,” he decides to say.

It doesn't upset him that he's lying to Hunk. What's upsetting is that he can't even pretend he believes what he's saying.

Hunk, on the other hand, doesn't press him like he would. Instead, his face adopts a disbelieving grimace that he would have thought was meant for him had Hunk not spoken up.

“I don't blame you for not having an appetite,” Hunk says, showing off how well he knows his friends and their moods. “I don't have much of an appetite now, either. I think I'm just eating for the sake of eating, y'know? I totally get it — some guy comes out of nowhere right out of the sea — I'd be freaking out a little bit too. especially since the guy's part fish.”

His head whips to the side so fast, it feels like the world just tilted on its axis and took his head with it. “You know?”

The grimace on Hunk's face turns awkward and hesitant. “Uhhh, yeah? He, uh, kinda showed me. Gotta tell you, man, I thought I was going crazy for a second there. But then, after I dropped him off and like, was cooking and stuff, I thought about it for a little bit. And then I took a walk, sat down and just… took it all in. I'm still taking it all in now. I think I've been sitting out here for hours, man.” Hunk sends a sheepish look his way. “How long's it been? You got the time?”

He doesn't answer right away. “…I don't have a watch. Or a phone.”

“Oh, right,” says Hunk. “Sorry. That sucks.” Hunk turns back to face the sea. “Well, the sun's almost down. I guess that means it's pretty late, right?”

He brings his knees to his chest and folds his arms over them as he answers. “I guess.”

Hunk wipes his hands and face with his handkerchief and stuffs it into the front pocket of his backpack. When Hunk looks back out at the still-burning sky, there's tranquility in his eyes. “Tomorrow's another day. Wonder what it'll be like.”

He rests his chin on his arms and closes his eyes, feeling the warmth of a dying sun on his face. A whisper lingers in the back of his mind. It's a voice he hasn't heard in a long, long time. The faint voice trickles carefully in his mind — _Tomorrow’s going to be a good day,_ it murmurs quietly, _a very, very good day._

 

* * *

 

He waits an additional fifteen minutes to the ten he's already spent standing outside a gas station. When the bus rolls down the street, there's a crowd of three whole people gathered at the bus stop, one of whom is still talking on the phone about a three-tier cake to be made for someone’s birthday. The conversation is unexpectedly rife with detail; he learns that it's best to freeze your cake overnight — it makes the cake firm and easier to cut. But mark along the sides with a toothpick — it's an old trick, and it's guaranteed to give you even layers! And don't spread the icing all the way to the edge; you'll get excess frosting when you stack the layers and gravity works its magic. **(2)**

But you can still use that excess frosting, can't you? Turn the cake-stand, rotate the the plate, and us that fancy knife you mentioned; all that extra frosting will smooth over the edge. So why the precaution? It all gets used regardless, so why be so careful? Why bother putting on airs and giving such a grabbe warning, as if it would be ‘end-all’ decision to make? Why bother making someone anxious like that? What's the big deal?

The conversation continues even when the bus starts to drive off Santa Monica Boulevard and onto California State Route 2. He tunes it out to watch through the window as the bus passes by streets that slowly lose their crowds as the trip sends them further inland. Buildings morph from trendy bistros and shops with recognizable names to fat buildings with multiple floors sitting on the side of the highway like an empty shell devoid of life, save for the trickle of dust in human shapes moving in and out one by one. The scenery soon bores him, and he turns from the window to look at the other passengers instead. **(3)**

The bus has filled up considerably since he first boarded. There were only four when he took his seat; there are five times as many now. Many of them are old; two of them are toting small children that point and slap the window whenever they see a taxi and six of them have wrinkled brows and graying hair. There is a short girl with wide hips and broad shoulders wearing hot pink jeans and a black band tee who doesn't sit and chooses instead to stand, using the metal poles to help her stay balanced. Two teenagers, sitting together, text furiously and occasionally look at each other with raised brows or knowing smiles. He wonders what that's like — to have a friend you never have to speak to, to appear like you can read each other's minds all because you send some words or a picture through a tiny little machine. What would it be like to think you know everything there is to someone, all because they smile and laugh alongside you; and then you find out one day that they aren’t the person you thought they were; they were dead — completely, irreversibly dead.

He knows that's not how it really goes; that's just how old folks like to gripes and complain about them kids nowadays; that's how old folks talk to make themselves feel better. So, does it make him feel better? It doesn't. But it does make him feel alone.

The bus lurches as it makes another turn, returning back to Santa Monica Boulevard. The path merges with Route 2 — so again, what’s the big deal? Why have two names? Why bother? Why not leave it alone? Was it made to poke fun at tourists who didn’t know the difference and couldn’t say, “ _Oh, from this point on, it’s North Santa Monica Boulevard_ a n d _California State Route 2. You don’t know that, because you don’t live here.”_ **(4)**

The bus ride strips the industrial world down to reveal a different layer of capitalized living that starts to begin past Central Park East and thickens when it meets Santa Monica Boulevard.The crowds return; trees line the sidewalks again, and the stores are a mix of large office buildings, hotels, and big name shops like STARBUCKS, and LE PAIN QUOTIDIEN, and SUBWAYS, and TRADER JOE’S, and even a WHOLE FOODS. Littered in between are small shops with equally small spaces like _fine men’s salon,_ and _victoria’s touch,_ and _studio rage,_ and _innovative theatres,_ and _forget me not_

A distant wailing echoes somewhere in the distance behind them. The doors to the bus opens, and the driver sits and waits at the stop even after the last person on line has boarded. There's no reason to rush; there's an ambulance speeding down, after all. The driver sits and checks his phone. Passengers look out the window. The girl in the hot pink jeans is going through her phone. The texting teens don't stop to look out the window; they're kissing instead, phones still in their hands. _No selfie?_ he wants to ask. _No; no selfie. No need._

The ambulance roars past. The driver shuts the door and the bus starts to move. It stops again, making everyone in their seats jerk forward. The doors swish open. Two kids climb onto the bus. A smaller child is hoisted onto the bus by a pair of frail arms belonging to a child probably eleven years old. A short woman with hair pulled into a tight bun joins them, speaking to them in rapid Spanish. The kids scamper to find seats. The young girl picks up the small child and sits the two of them down in a single seat. The woman pays the fare. She starts to sit down.

The driver turns, says something in Spanish and points at the two kids. The woman turns and say something that begins with _“¿Que?”_ This goes back and forth; the woman walks back up the aisle to the driver. The passengers stare. The texting teens aren't kissing anymore; one of them looks upset.

“Oh, come on,” grumbles an old woman sitting up front. She's sitting behind the two kids the driver has pointed out. “You're making us all late! Hurry up and pay!”

The mother of four is still speaking to the driver. Her brow is creased as she opens her wallet and looks inside. Then she looks at the driver and speaks rapidly in Spanish. The driver points back to the two kids and says something else. The mother replies with a sigh, throwing her hands in the air. The old woman, with thick grey-black curls and fine wrinkles digging grooves in her brown skin, growls like a dog and he wonders, frowning, why is it that people of color gripe and complain about people of their own color? Why are they so quick to judge those of their own community? Does it make them feel better?

One of the texting teens stands up. He speaks loudly, his voice ringing clear over the commotion. He's holding up a fare card and slides past his girlfriend to approach the front. The mother looks exhausted as gratitude flows out from her in waves. _“Gracias,_ ” she says over and over again. The teen just smiles and shakes his head and talks to her for a moment longer.

The old woman snaps again. “Get a move on already!”

“Ma'am,” says the driver, “it will only be a minute longer.”

“Sorry,” says the teen to the old woman, the empty word left to hang in obligation. “Thanks,” the teen says next, this time to the driver as the teen uses his fare card.

Finally, the bus begins to move. The teen rushes back to his seat; his girlfriend has slid down to let her boyfriend sit at the aisle. She clasps his hand and gives him a soft smile. The old woman continues to grumble. The mother of four sighs and sinks heavily into a seat near the front. Her eleven year old child sinks deep into her own seat.

The bus plows through the traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. In a few minutes, Santa Monica's beachy cityscape melts into the drab capitalist scene. Thick crowds begin to flow through the streets, a rushing current of unknown faces running down sidewalks surrounded by commercial storefronts, large, colorful advertisements plastered on city buses, and a steady hum of voices and chatter in mixed tongues.

The bus stalls in the middle of heavy traffic. A group of laughing teenage girls seated at an outside table at a cafe suddenly quiets down to hushed whispers and starts gesturing at one another. Their faces draw closer. Then, one of the girls points at him; there's a teasing glint in her eyes and a matching smile settling on her face behind the glittery pink case of her phone. The rest of the girls follow suit, glancing briefly his way. Then they pool their heads together and erupt into laughter and giggles and send each other knowing looks, exclaiming, “他很帅!” over and over again. He, too, sinks deeper into his seat, running a hand through his hair and pulling on the hem of his shirt. **(5)**

The current of traffic starts to move, the sound of the brakes on the bus releasing filling his ears with relief. The engine whirrs as the bus continues its way up Santa Monica Boulevard, just as a myriad of thoughts fill his head and has him asking himself — why are people of color so quick to judge people of their own color? Does it make them feel better? Does it make them feel like they're doing something right? Like they belong somewhere?

He must've done something wrong, then; he must've fucked up criticizing people who look like him and trying so hard not to be “like them,” because all he feels right now is how he's a nobody — someone who doesn't even know who he is anymore; someone who doesn't matter anymore. A nothing — _No Thing._ No Thing at all.

The bus drives on, full of strangers and No Thing At All.

 

* * *

 

It's bright all over. The fluorescent lights are a soft white and the blank tiles on the floor shine bright and reflects everything, spilling light everywhere. He hates it; he wants to tip over the bargain bins full of all the stupid, useless shit and spill everything on the floor and cover it up. And why the hell not? Nobody's gonna buy any of it anyway. Who's going to oogle and fawn and purchase a multi-patterned, multi-colored thick pad of paper of 80 sheets priced at $3.99 with _“TO DO”_ in fancy gold lettering on the top of every page? His mother, probably. But she's dead. So, no one. There’s no one to buy it, that’s who.

There are five “no one”s picking through the bargain sale items, and he wants to tell them to go home. _You don't need any of that!_ He wants to shout, _You really think you're going to use it? All you're going to do is use the first three pages, then it'll sit with the coupons you never used on the corner of the kitchen table collecting dust and bearing witness to every time you ask your son— “What was it I had to do? Keith, do you remember? Oh, what was it that I had to do? It was very important...” And all you've ever written on any sheet of gold_ “TO DO” _paper was “watch the sunset on the beach” “collect seashells” “계란, 우유, 쌀, 당근, 배추, 고추 가루, celery, oregano, basil, pasta sauce—”_ **(6)**

One lady rifling through a bin doesn't see her own kid trying to pull himself up to the top to see what the big deal is. Her hand is elbow-deep in the bin when the kid manages to hang onto the edge for a few seconds. The pile of bargain items the lady has made is teetering over the edge, close to the kid's face.

The kid reaches out with a hand toward the pile. A plastic container of a roll of smiley-face stickers topples over and falls into the kid's face. Alarmed, the kid lets go and falls backwards. The kid lies on the floor in a daze after receiving a sound thwack to the back of his head. Then, he starts to bawl.

He stands at the entrance by the bargain bins, watching the lady gasp and reach for her son. The child wails, big fat tears streaming from the corners of his eyes and rolling down the sides of his face and into his ears. His arms are outstretched towards the lady. The child is in his mother's arms in the next instant; the wailing quiets down to whimpering hiccups. Mom rubs her hand on his back, and says, “ _It's okay, don't cry.”_

“ _It hurts,”_ weeps the child. “ _It hurts.”_

“ _I know. It's okay. Just a little bump, is all. You'll be all right. Where's my big boy? Here he is! Come on, my big boy, let's go see some toys now, okay? And then when we're done shopping, umma will make you gimbap and you and appa can play in the yard.”_ **(7)**

“Oh, Jesus— Adam? Adam? Adam, it's okay. It was a little accident, you'll be okay. Mama's here. Hey, you want ice cream?”

He blinks and he thinks he's crying. Quickly, he wipes at his eyes. They're moist. His hands are clammy, and they're shaking. He stares mutely at them. _You don't miss her,_ he chants to himself, even as his entire body flashes hot and cold and sweat breaks out on his brow. _You don't miss her. You don't miss her. You don't miss her._

The kid sniffs loudly. “I want—I want a milkshake.”

“Uh, okay. I don't know if they have one here, but sure. Maybe there's a place around here that makes milkshakes…” The lady bite her lip in thought and stares at the floor, hand patting her son's back. Then, the lady looks right up at him. “Excuse me? Young man? Do you know where to get a milkshake?”

She looks nothing like his mother. So why does it feel like he's talking to his mother?

He swallows; his mouth is drier than an asphalt lot under the sun in the middle of July. “Uh,” he starts haltingly, feeling his hand moving to point somewhere behind him. His other hands comes up to rub at his eyes again. His voice sound choked when he speaks. “There's a McDonald's somewhere down there. I think.”

The lady nods her head as she scoops up her purse and straightens up, her son still in her arms. “Right! Right, of course. I know what you're talking about. Okay. Okay, thanks!”

She rushes away, her feet a silent flurry of motion encased in a pair of black toms, speeding through the automatic doors of the main entrance he is still standing in front of. He stares out through the glass doors, watching the lady running away from the curved entrance of the store in a world that isn't as bright as the one he's stuck in. And as he sees the lady's retreating back, he feels a sudden pang that grips his heart in his chest and starts to rip it to shreds, making him feel like that plastic box of smiley-face stickers teetering on the edge.

With practiced ease, he holds it all together and freezes it with a blank smile on his face and walks a tightrope path straight to the restrooms. He barrels right through the swinging doors, muttering an apology to the startled man on the other side, walks past the urinals, and heads for the last stall in the restroom. Once inside, he quiet shuts the door, locks himself inside, and collapses on the toilet with his hands over his mouth to stifle the heaving gasps and sobs as he tells himself, over and over again, _You don't miss her. You don't miss her. You don't miss her. You don't miss her. You don't—_

 

* * *

 

Rihanna is the artist of choice over in Target’s empty electronics section, especially in the aisle filled with wireless speakers and overpriced, sound-filtering headphones. He doesn't know most of the songs that are playing, but he recognizes her voice. He's always liked that voice; there was always something wistfully sad lingering her voice, no matter what the music was about. It's her mournful crooning that’s drawn him to her music for as long as he can remember — even before he realized it was because that’s how he always felt.

He can't remember when he first caught onto it, that sneaky monster of a demon latching onto his back and sucking at his soul. There was always an itch, always; but it was never something beyond that until he had no one left to distract him. He thinks he saw it once, when he was fourteen and got his first taste of pot in the back of a Target store miles and miles away. It was Rolo who gave him that first taste; that's how they met — in Texas, where he and Shiro grew up; he remembers a day of spring break, right before Easter, when he and Shiro were getting high and hiding between two dumpsters in the back of a Target parking lot, when he thought he saw a black shadow coming for him with eyes of hellish red and sharp teeth. _“I think I see Jesus,”_ he remembers Shiro saying, because yes, there _was_ a beard on that shadowed monstrosity. _“Is he black?”_ he had asked, wondering if maybe, finally, he wasn't crazy after all; there really was something following him. _“No, he's Asian.”_ And, when he had concentrated hard enough and squinted his eyes and finally could see, he had replied with, _“I think that's your dad.”_ He remembers with supreme clarity Shiro's whispered response — _“Shit, you're right.”_

He's able to stop the memories from leaking any further, plugging a cork in that channel by wandering deeper into the exhibit of the Modern World that Target has pieced together.

He spends time catching up to what’s been released, eyeing featured albums in the music aisle, flipping through the books on display with the “BEST SELLERS” tag, thumbing through magazines about celebrities he doesn’t really know, most of them featuring snapshots of Taylor Swift’s brief affair with Benewhatsit Cumbersomething. He pokes and prods a giant beanbag chair and wonders if he should get one shipped to Pidge’s house and asks, on a whim so gleeful it shocks him, a passing worker how he’d go about doing that. He follows the worker like a lost dog, hopeful and anxious, smiling and nodding his head at all the right times, and hands over faded, crumpled bills as payment as he confirms the address.

Sucking in a breath, he loops back to where he was, zooming by the horrendously designed toddler outfits _(except that one, the one with the baby shark; that one was kind of cute, wasn't it?)_ and speeding past the workout clothes with hardly a glance behind because he can't believe — he can't _believe_ he just did that! He did that; he just ordered something, on a whim, to be shipped to someone he knows would enjoy, using his own money, his own hard-earned cash — _he just did that._

He rides a wave of euphoria so high it keeps him tearing down aisles he has no need of visiting. He ventures in and out of alien worlds: he was in a Hall of Mirrors, surrounded by a dreadfully drab-looking figure; and then a small gallery of watercolor landscapes, all printed and cut to fit frames of varying shapes and sizes; and then an exotic garden of flowers, all of them fully bloomed and plastic. And now, he feels like he's stuck somewhere between “Asia-Land!” and some nondescript Hispanic country: he was flanked on one side by boxes of Sazon and cans with GOYA printed on them, and a line of Kikoman sauces on the other; there's long-grain rice on his left, and to his right there are bags of jasmine rice and rice noodles and rows and rows of instant noodles from Top Ramen, Maru-Chan, Nissin, Sapporo Ichiban, and — hey, that's Nong-Shim! **(8)**

He picks up one of the squarish, red and black packages, staring in awe at how the packaging hasn't changed even after all those years. It's exactly the same as the ones he remembers from his childhood, the ones his father hid in the back of the kitchen cabinet, as if Mom wouldn't find it if there was a box of Barilla penne in front of it — Mom hated anything instant; he remembered she didn't want to buy a microwave at first. He runs his hand over the familiar characters on the front, listening quietly to the soft crinkling of the package that send him away from his childhood home in Texas and dump him straight to a one-room apartment just a few minutes' drive away, the home he lost because the ceiling was leaking and so was his brain and he couldn't _s t a n d_ it and he left and never came back. He wonders what happened to his clothes, his books, his phone. The bedding he paid forty dollars for — what happened to it? Did the bedbugs get to it? Did it get dumped? Was it sitting somewhere in the bottom of a bin at a Salvation Army thrift store or a Goodwill? Was someone using it right now? Was there someone curled under his blue-and-white striped blanket, buried comfortably in the hills and writing away, hiding themselves from the rest of the world?

He puts the Shin Ramyun package back where it was and leaves the aisle.

He's rounding back to the rear of the store, spying an entire display of candles with opened lids to his right, and he compulsively wanders over to close each and every one the best he can. Scents of lavender and jasmine and ocean mist and fresh cotton and summer rain and apple cinnamon clog his senses, leaving him a little woozy. By the time he’s finished, there’s only the small collection of Yankee Candles on the top shelf left to re-cap; most of them are already capped except for a few. He matches each jar to their respective lid, and during this monotonous activity he happens upon one that catches his eye. Curiosity compels him to open a heavy jar with the label “mountain lodge” and—

He caps it immediately, feeling his eyes widen. His fingers are curled tightly around it; the musky scent swirls dreamily in his head and he can’t help but want to take this jar home, even if he lives in a dilapidated wooden shack in the middle of an abandoned section of the beach. He puts it back on the shelf, the jar as heavy as the desperate yearning in his chest that grows heavier still as he forces his feet to take him far, far away because _wow, what was that? that was weird; that was good weird; that was really_ r e a l l y _good weird._ **(9)**

He wanders back to the electronics section, the lingering scent of heavy musk hauntingly present in his mind, running its wispy hands through his memories and filling him with what is now dread instead of longing, because there is only one person he thinks of when he feels this way, and that one person has left him, gone away for good to now get married to—

Allura Lyon, dressed elegantly in a sleek, ivory-colored dress with a bright, blue cardigan and a single pearl on a gleaming silver strand around her neck, is at the counter of the electronics section. **(10)**

He can't breathe. He stares, mutely. He can't breathe. He stares. Can't breathe. He—

He dives away into a section that fills with with pictures of flowers and trees and placid lakesides and crosses and butterflies and birds and words like WISHING YOU COMFORT THINKING OF YOU KINDNESS AND WARMTH FAITH WILL GIVE YOU STRENGTH and his head spins and whirls, trapped within rows and rows of sympathy cards, and he still can't breathe—

“—what to do, Coran. I feel absolutely devastated for him. He doesn't want to put the wedding on hold, no matter what. Don't you think it should? Doesn't it seem rather selfish of me to allow it to continue?”

b r e a t h e           i n _(one two three four five six seven eight)_

“My dear,” says the man at the counter, “if he hasn't budged after one of your talks, then I can't help but think the ceremony should continue. Do you want to put it on hold?”

b r e a t h e           o u t _(one two three four five six seven eight)_

“No, I—We've waited so long for this, Coran. You wouldn't imagine.”

b r e a t h e           i n _(one two three four five six seven eight)_

“There were so many times the wedding almost fell through. Our first caterers had to cancel — did you know that? — and then the location had to be changed, because the owner had supposedly forgotten that there was another event that came in conflict with ours. It's just been one nightmare after another. At this rate, I don’t think I can last any longer.”

“Come now, don't say such things. You’ll pulled through far more than this. Why, this is nothing compared to when you first inherited your father’s work.”

“Yes… Yes, You’re right. If I managed with that, I can manage this as well.” A sigh. “I’m sorry to burden you like this. But I have no one else to turn to. I… I've hardly met anyone else since I left home, and now all this is happening. Oh, I feel like the universe is trying to tear me apart. Never have I felt so doubtful.”

The breath he held in comes out slowly, replaced by the sorrow that spills over from Shiro's fiancée. It comes into him like a trickle of water at first, then hits him with large, plummeting waves so familiar that he loses his anxiety in the rapids and is left instead with reluctant understanding.

He relates to her deeply. He doesn't want to, but he does and he can't wash out what he feels like he usually does with everything else. He knows the look on her face, knows intimately what weight folds the creases in her brow, what makes the corners of her mouth droop, what sadness fills what otherwise should be dreamy eyes of hope. It is horrid to be able to understand her, as it also is to feel such strength behind his being able to feel horrid. What vile monstrosity is he, that he can't stand to feel empathy for someone who is merely wishing to wed the love of her life; for someone who feels the parched thirst of loneliness in a crowded town full of people; for someone just like him? Why is it, he asks himself, that people gripe and complain about those just like themselves? Is it truly to make them feel better? Or is it because they can't stand their own selves?

“My apologies for asking, Allura,” says the man at the counter, “but are you, perhaps, feeling doubtful of your relationship?”

Allura straightens and shock floods her face. “Certainly not! I was talking about my work! I have never been more sure about how I feel for someone the way I do now. I love him, Coran. I really do love him.”

There it was, the words he'd dreaded for so long. But there is no crushing feeling of devastation weighing down his heart. There is only a twinge of regret — for what? Perhaps of coming here, on this day; he should've come yesterday — then he wouldn't have had to bother with _the dead man the creature_ _the man_ _Lance._ Regret is what he feels; regret and reluctant acceptance.

“Then everything will be fine. You're overwhelmed. You should relax. Visit the sea, go to the theatre, have a try at yoga again. Take some time for yourself.”

Allura sighs, melting onto the counter on folded arms. “I can't. There's too much to do. None of the contracts are finished, and there are meetings with the board I haven’t even prepared for.”

“Your business can wait—”

“And on top of that, I need to double-check on how many guests we'll have for the wedding and whether or not we'll have enough food, and whether all the floral arrangements will be done in time.” Allura buries her face in her hands. “Oh, Coran. None of this would be bothering me so if Shiro's father were alright. He's fallen ill so suddenly, and there's nothing anyone can do. I feel just horrible.”

And so does he; the news comes as a shock. Shiro was very close to his father. He can't imagine how Shiro must be feeling. But he understands clearly, now, why it was that Allura was so filled with sorrow. She is a woman wracked with guilt-ridden uncertainty: should she go on with the wedding, despite the ailing health of her fiance's father, or pause the wedding entirely? And then there were the pressures of her unspoken work, bearing it all while figuring out how to belong in a new place, amongst new people.

 _What a beautiful, kind heart she has,_ he thinks quietly to himself. _And strong, too. Shiro would love her always_ — Of that, he was certain.

“Allura,” says Coran, reaching over to stroke her hair as a father would for his daughter, “There are some things only fate can decide.”

Allura reveals her face, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I know, Coran. Believe me, I know. I'm just so used to being able to fix everything with my own hands. But this time, what I have isn't enough. And it's hard to accept that, sometimes, you just— aren't enough.”

“It's a very sobering thought, isn't it? But quite necessary. With that said, I hope you aren't meaning to truly buy-out an entire town—”

“The city has abandoned it for so long, Coran. I can't just leave it alone. Not when I can do something about it.”

“Black Rock feeds a wealthy enclave,” Coran says. “One that might not want to see you poking around too much.”

Allura waves a dismissive hand. “I don't care for any of that. They can't cause me any harm.”

“Allura,” says Coran, and the tone he uses makes it clear that he is frowning. “There are dreams, and there are insanities. Do bear that in mind.”

Allura ponders quietly for a moment, her hot passion easing to a low-burning flame with just those few words. “I shall.”

“Good. Now, amuse me a while longer, if you will. What does Shiro think of all this? You haven't kept it from him this long, now have you?”

A sheepish look crosses her face. He finds it rather charming to see how abashed she is towards the notion of her fiance discovering her supposedly secret passion of reviving a dead town. Doesn't she know he would be on board? “He knows now, thanks to Mr. Dakalov running his mouth off to the press.”

“There's a reason Sennett was made councilman. You should have turned to someone else for partnership when you first ventured out.” **(11)**

“I thought our shared history could have inspired him to make revolutionary changes. Unfortunately, he was only interested in seeing how home was. Speaking of home, have you heard of anything? I would hate to know that my meeting with him was inspiring in other ways.”

“I shall keep one ear open for you, my dear. But I'm certain all is well. Many years have passed since the days of your Father.”

Allura sighs. “I wish they hadn't gone so fast. I barely remember him now. I was very young when it happened.”

“He would be very proud of you now.”

“Do you really think so? Even if I left everyone behind? I don't even know what it means to be home anymore, I think. It's all so confusing.”

“I think he would understand.”

The smile that came to her face drew away most of the sadness that wore it down. “I’m so sorry I've kept you so long. Especially while you're supposed to be working.”

Coran chuckles. “I don't think there's much to worry,” he says, gesturing to the counter empty for all but them. “I can't imagine anyone wanting to purchase a new telly at nine-thirty in the morning.”

Allura laughs gently. “I think there was one customer lingering around here, if I'm not mistaken. He took quite some time by the speakers. I think he was waiting for assistance.” His heart nearly falls out when her eyes drift his way. She gives a coy smile. “He's still waiting, I believe.”

Coran turns, and that's when he realizes with a start — _That's the man from the wharf! The man who'd laughed at him when he couldn't tie his net! What are the odds?_

The man's brows rise high on his face, as if he is in surprise. Does this mean he recognizes him?

Coran chuckles, returning to Allura. “It seems that you're right, as always.”

Allura leans in and kisses Coran on the cheek. “Thank you, Coran. You've been so wonderful to me.”

“I should hope so, if I am to stay as the one who walks you down the aisle.”

Allura laughs. “Oh, Coran. You know there's only one person who'd be able to take Father's place at my wedding.”

Coran lifts a hand to his brow and turns searchingly left and right. “Is there? Who?”

“Co _ran,”_ Allura says, eyes bright and smiling.

Coran straightens and leans forward to give her a warm embrace. “I shall do you both proud.”

“Goodbye, Coran.”

“Take care, Allura.”

She leaves like a summer breeze, moving soundlessly through the store. Her face, once so downcast, was bright and merry though her eyes still held a quiet glimmer of sorrow. Her hair floats weightlessly around her shoulders, a cascading mist of soft curls. She walks poised, with perfect balance, as if she cannot possibly be thrown aside by any storm in the world. Like a radiant gem lost at sea, she walks toward the aisle he has made his own hidden cove. But so enraptured is he by her gentle smile and kind eyes that he forgets to feel frightened or envious or spiteful. Instead, he feels oddly at peace. **(12)**

 _This is whom Shiro will marry,_ he thinks to himself. A beautiful, kind heart tucked neatly into the stronghold of a woman daring enough to dream up the revival of a beach town once prolific with the working hands of immigrants now scorned; a woman of action, of grace, of justice.

She comes to a stop before him and offers a quiet smile, hands folding neatly in front of her. He hardly knows how to greet her, let alone breathe, but he has nothing to fear for she is the one who begins their small talk.

“I'm sorry for keeping him so long,” she says, “I know hardly a soul since coming here last summer, and he is the only family I have here.”

“It's fine,” he says, his simple words plain and childish besides her polished speech.

She smiles warmly, then looks to the cards he's standing in front of. A look of understanding suddenly passes her face, and before he can correct her she turns to him with an expression so solemn and says, “I hope for the best.”

She leaves before he can correct her. He doesn't think he would have, even if given the chance. Let her go thinking he was a fellow griever, as opposed to someone else — a lost lover, a lost dreamer, a lost soul. He watches her leave until he can't see her anymore, and as she goes farther and farther away, he wishes, silently, all the best for her.

 

* * *

 

“Why,” says Coran when he's finally figured out which phone to buy, “hello again! If it isn't the aspiring seafarer from the cove.” Coran is smiling widely, a different sort of smile than Hunk's, or Pidge's, or even Allura's. Coran whistles as he finalizes the details of the phone he's buying. When the minutes and data are confirmed and the final price is calculated, he unfolds some of the bills he's kept rolled up in the shack for so long, and hands them over to Coran.

“Looks like the beeswax came in handy after all. Don't you go plucking away all the fish from the sea, now, no matter how much money you make.” Coran winks, and he isn't sure if he should be feeling this drained from a simple, five-minute conversation.

“There we go, all set! Will I be seeing you at the wedding?”

He pauses mid-reach for his new phone. “What?”

For the first time since meeting him, Coran's smile vanishes. Instead, there is a look of bewilderment. Coran's voice quiets down. “You are Shiro's friend, aren't you? The one he calls Keith?”

His blood f r e e z e s and he—

“He's quite worried about you since you went and disappeared. Not to worry — I haven't told a soul about how where you are or what you do. Just that you're alive and well.”

“How did you know who I was?” His voice hisses angrily, his lungs are tight and strained, and his body is a block of ice.

Coran just looks at him, amused. “Black Rock is a small town, and I've lived there all my life. Of course I'm going to know who you are.”

He doesn't see the correlation between living in a small town and knowing who exactly he was, but before he can point out the obvious hole in the man's inane logic, Coran was speaking again.

“You probably don't know this,” he says almost in a whisper, sliding his new phone across the counter, “but your mother always wanted to stay by the sea. In a way, I suppose, this too is fate.”

Shock makes his world, for a long moment, consist only of the sounds of his slow, even breathing, the pre-paid phone he'd just purchased, and the clean, grey-marbled counter-top it lay on.

When he is finally able to look up, the man is gone.

 

* * *

 

The water is calm today. He can't remember if that makes it bad for fishing or if it makes it good. He hopes for the latter, but he thinks the former, because the sky is brightening overhead and he still hasn't caught a single thing. He lies in the boat and doesn't move, thinking that if he does, the fish will hear that he's waiting for them and run away.

He lies completely still for as long as he can bear. It used to be that he could lay out here until the sun signaled for high noon, knowing only when he felt the telltale itch of a sunburn, like hot sandpaper scrubbing hard beneath the layers of his skin. Or when a sudden wave accosts him, showering him in cold water and forcing him awake with his heart in his throat. Sometimes, he would wake peacefully, as if he were dying in his sleep except backwards — as if he were waking up from death.

But now, he can't lie down in the boat for too long before he feels a heavy pull in the back of his skull. Some spell takes him under, and when he wakes he cannot breathe and he is deeply submerged — only, he isn't; he's just deeply submerged in a dream. The dream is always the same: pitch-black and cold; a freezing grip around his chest as ice stabs down his throat and into his lungs; his limbs — useless, unmoving — float at his sides as if he were in water—

SINKING YOU'RE SINKING YOU'RE SINKING LIKE A ROCK YOU'RE DROWNING — _HE CAN'T BR E    A    T  H  E—_

He jolts upright, heart thrashing in his chest even when his brain tells it to CALM DOWN because he's not underwater, no matter how much it felt like he was, no matter how much it sounded like he was, no matter how much it seemed like the sea whispered to him with its voice — _a cruel, raspy voice, like a witch; a sea-witch, or some other horrible creature from the sea_ ; but it's okay now, he's okay; the ocean hasn't gotten to him yet.

He buries his face in his hands, hunching over his lap and breathing in and out, in and out, slowly, counting to eight each time breath travels through his nose and mouth; counting to eight, because that's the longest he can bear to hold his breath; any longer, and he feels like he's drowning and he hates it, he hates that feeling, he hates the paralyzing fear that floods his head and his makes his heart bob up to his throat like it wants to get the fuck out of his body, his sick, sick body — _Get me out of here!_ his heart screams, clawing up his throat, _I hate it here! I can't live like this!_

 _Yes you can!_ he cries desperately, _You can! I can! I can, so you can, too! Don't go—I need you; I need you to keep living!_

He spends his time at sea wrestling with his heart, trying desperately to keep it from tearing out of his mouth; he fights to convince it to stay — _stay here, let's stay here together; let's stay alive, please, just a little longer_ — and he clamps his mouth shut to keep his heart from falling out and squeezes his hands against his mouth as if that's somehow going to keep himself together and what’s worse is knowing that none of this is real _(his heart's not in his throat; his heart's not trying to jump out);_ he knows none of this is real — _but it sure fucking feels like it is_ — and that's the worst part of all.

It takes a while before his heart gives up. By the time his heart tires from the arduous battle, sliding back down his throat and letting him swallow it whole, the sun is a fireball in the sky, blazing high above his head. It's not quite noon yet, but it will be soon.

And he still has nothing in his net.

“God dammit,” he says, quietly at first; and then he screams, “God— DAMMIT!”

His breath comes in harsh pants, loud against the quiet lapping of a calm ocean. He blinks through a salty breeze, feeling his eyes water from the wet sting (or were those just tears?), and the words _god dammit_ rings like an echo in his ears.

The water is calm today, he notes. He's yelled _God— DAMMIT_ out loud. The net is going to stay empty now, isn't it?

“God dammit,” he says again, dumping his face back into his hands.

A ripple of water fills his ears. He opens his eyes, hands still covering his face. Something flashes brightly in the water. Slowly, he lowers his hands from his face. He stares at a spot of blue light glowing eerily beneath the waves. Dread comes to him like a winter chill. _Oh no,_ he thinks as he watches the light grow bigger and bigger, _Not you; not again._ The light trembles beneath the surface, hesitant. Then, it starts to fade. Soon, the water is calm and blue, looking innocuously dark and murky.

But he knows better.

 _He's diving,_ he thinks after a moment, leaning over the edge of his boat to peer into the sea. _What's he up to?_

His answer comes with a sudden tug to the side of his boat. It nearly sends him into the water. He's able to slam his hands against the brim and hold steady; he sees his own wide-eyed expression of fear staring up at him from the water. He lurches back, taking in deep, gulping breaths. _That was close,_ he thinks. _That was so, so close._

The boat rocks again, and his heart leaps back to his throat. Only, this time, it returns to its place and pounds a furious beat in his chest. It's angry.

At first, he thinks the creature is the sea-witch trying to bring him into the sea. After all, that's happened once before, hasn't it? Oh yes, it has; he remembers — it was the night he returned the stone to the sea. A great big something had rocked the boat, sending him into the sea. He remembers it well.

The boat rocks again, this time softly. And that's how he starts to think it's somehow different this time, that the creature maybe, probably, isn't the sea-witch, and instead is just a creature doing… Something to his net? _What's he up to?_ He thinks again, _What's he done with the net?_ He takes another chance to come to the side of the boat. With a start, he realizes that the boat's awfully close to the water; and that's when he realizes how the boat dips port-side and how the hand-line has grown taut. Some silly flutter of hope dares to warm his heart. Is the net… Is there something in the net?

He pulls on the hand-line; the line nearly cuts into his palm, but he feels a heavy load on the other side rising slowly up to the surface. As he keeps pulling, he sees a lumpy shape in the murky waters, sees the way the shadow's outline wriggles and moves. He gets to his feet and pulls on the line, grunting and heaving and yanking until, finally, the net breaches the surface—

Dark-colored fish with flat, broad bodies, compressed faces, and short fins flounder in a panic, slapping wildly against the surface of the sea. Long fish with a silver body, dark blue scales along its back, and a bright yellow tail wriggle amongst the fatter bodies of skipjack tuna, their tapered ends poking pathetically against tiny silver fish that, mostly, find a way through the net because of their size. He stares at them all, nearly in shock. And then he tells himself, _I can't take them all; I don't think I can even take half of this._

He winds the hand-line around the cleats along the side of his boat, dutifully ignoring the quiet gaze from a pair of eyes on a head that floats above water some distance away. Carefully, he takes only what he needs, stunning them by striking them in the spot just above their eyes with a heavy weights from his boat and quickly bleeding them out by the gills before icing them. Once he fills the box with a catch he knows Hunk will be proud of and Pidge can appreciate, he unwinds the hand-line from the cleats and loosens the net. Like a sudden explosion, the fish spill back into the sea.

He watches their shadows disappear beneath the waves, their bodies slipping effortless through the water. The sea, calm and steady even under the fiery gaze of the sun, ripples and moves as its children return to its murky depths. Only one child remains, observant and still, keeping a respectable distance away.

He acknowledges him at last, for he knows to repay kindness with kindness; or gratitude, at the very least. “Thanks,” he says, making sure that his word carries over the soft sounds of the sea. At once, the merman _(because that’s what he is, isn’t it? a merman!)_ rises from the waters, coming out with a splash and an eager smile, the sun making his broad chest and shoulders glow with a golden light.

“I am glad for your thanks. More glad to see that you are pleased.” The merman starts to wade closer to the boat when he suddenly stills. “May I approach?”

He doesn't want him to, but he is the reason Hunk and Pidge will be smiling today. “Okay.”

The merman, too, smiles today. He shines with the light of a thousand suns. The gap between them is closed far quicker than he is prepared for. It sends him leaning back into his boat. The merman slows then, and a fraction of his smile grows dim. It's still there, but it no longer shines like the sun. Instead it settles pleasantly on his face, a comforting curve of lips where a serene joy glows as softly as the light of the moon.

This, he decides, he can work with.

“How did you do that?” he asks the merman, who gives him a curious look. He supposes the question comes from thin air, so he supplies the context from which his line of thought came. “The fish. I was out here for hours with an empty net, but you filled it up in a second.”

There's some kind of look that fills the merman’s eyes in the way he knows he doesn't like; some sneaking promise of inappropriate humor. But it dies down quickly without any such thing being said. This, he appreciates.

A corner of the merman's mouth quirks up in a crooked smile. “I told them there was food where your net was. They listened. Fish are not very intelligent.” Then, without warning, the merman halts and abruptly dives into the sea, his large tail-fin summoning a crashing wave that soaks him head to toe. This, he does not appreciate.

He seems to have it written plainly on his face, because when the merman resurfaces, his smiled is wiped by an apologetic look. “Forgive me. I only meant to catch my meal before it could get away.” To punctuate his statement, the merman raises a fish out of the water in both hands. He stares not at the slowing movements of the fish or the blood running down long, slender fingers as sharp teeth rip into raw, live flesh, but rather at the thin webbing between each finger belonging to the man from the sea. A wild desire rises in him that makes him wonder, briefly, what it would feel like to run his finger over a thin membrane of flesh such as those.

“What are you thinking of, _nani kāne?”_

“You look gross,” he blurts out, and it isn't a lie. There are pieces of fish gore on Lance's chin and nose. A dark red stain smears across the other man’s lips and chin to drip into the sea. He watches the murky sea swirling with red where Lance floats and gets a thread of concern trickling through his thoughts. “Won't that attract sharks?”

Amusement flickers in the merman’s eyes as he licks the blood off his fingers. “Are you afraid?”

He hesitates before answering; not because he’s captivated with horror and disgust as the merman sucks the blood and gore off his hands, but because he’s actually bothering to give the question some thought. “I guess,” is his unimpressive answer.

“You have little to fear, _nani kāne._ Sharks do not like human flesh. But, some of my kind do.” At that, Lance grins widely, flashing a mouth full of sharp teeth still red with blood.

A chill runs down his spine. In his chest, his heart pounds, angrily. _You told me to live,_ it hissed, _Well, we're going to live!_ His hand curls around the edge of the boat. In his head, he envisions wrapping his right hand around the heavy weight he used to stun the fish. _Strike him between the eyes, strike his head; strike him hard!_ his heart whispers, _you can’t let him get you; we’re going to live!_

“You will be glad to know that I much rather prefer the company of humans when they are alive and well. I mean you no true harm. I only jest.” As he says this, another smile spreads on the merman's face. With the merman’s face still covered in blood and fish scales and gore, the expression does little to put him at ease.

“Do you just eat fish, then?” he asks, trying to see if he can detect any dishonesty from small talk. It was how he learned how gentle and strong the woman Shiro was to marry was; perhaps he could learn a thing or two about this merman in the same way.

The merman moves his shoulders up and down, picking at the flesh still sticking to the bones of his fish. He wonders if it's something learned from humans, or if it truly is a universal gesture. “I eat anything I can find.” The merman fixes a curious gaze on him. “What do you eat?”

He thinks about Hunk’s sandwich, then of the leftover pizza always in Pidge’s home, and finally thinks back to the days when he was desperate enough to eat out of the garbage. “Same as you, I guess. Anything I can find.”

The merman seems to like his answer, however vague. Though, it could be that he didn’t care for his response seeing as how he’s still occupied with his meal. There is little left of the fish now, save for the head and tail. He can see the bones, wide-splayed and sharp, almost-translucent in the light of the sun, and watches the merman lick them clean. Then, the merman starts to rip his teeth into the face of the fish, popping one of the eyeballs into his mouth and giving it a sound crunch.

It's then that he realizes how he's been holding a conversation, however dull, with someone eating an entire animal raw, while it was still alive. He wonders if he should be bothered by it, and then whether he should be bothered with his indifference to it all. The only twinge of perturbation he feels is whenever the merman directs a sharp-toothed grin his way while dripping fish entrails and blood off his face.

 _Life,_ he thinks as he watches the merman completing his meal, _is quite cruel._ Survival means sacrifice, whether it comes out of you or from you. There is no waiting with life — you must chase after it before it chases after you. And if you are too slow, there are sharp teeth waiting to sink into your flesh and consume you whole, indifferent to whether or not you’ve suddenly gained your lust for life again. For it knows that it doesn’t matter — by then, it is too late; by then, there is nothing of you left.

“—your home?”

“Hm?” He snaps out of his reverie to look at the merman, who was now picking what flesh still remained on the face of the fish, now devoid of eyes.

“I ask when you are to return to your home.” The merman tosses the fish remains into the sea.

He glances at his icebox for a brief second before turning to the shoreline, his shack a pathetic sight even from where he is.

“Is that your home? Surely you live elsewhere,” says the merman, striking a nerve with the teasing lilt those words possess.

 _Pay kindness with kindness,_ echoes his mother in his head. _Tell him to fuck off,_ his heart hisses.  “I’m working,” he grits out, caught somewhere in between. “Why don’t _you_ go home?”

“I can’t,” says the merman in the smallest voice he’s ever heard.

He turns a skeptic eye on the merman, who looks as small as his admission sounded. “Why not? Are you lost?”

The merman seems unable to answer, pulling his lips, still red with blood, into a frown instead. The merman takes one look at the remainder of the fish in his hands and tosses it over his shoulder. The light catches the curved, spiked bones and makes it glint one more time before it disappears underwater. The merman dips his head into the sea. For a second, he thinks the merman has left. A bitter pang fills his heart; he hadn’t really meant to chase him away. The bitterness grows heavy and spreads deeply in his chest. _He is no different,_ he thinks, _than all the rest, no matter where he comes from._

But then the water breaks and the merman returns, this time with a clean face and stern eyes, the frown on his face now a firm line of decisiveness. He watches the merman shake his head; for what, he doesn’t know — _does he mean to say he’s not lost? does he mean to chase the water from his ears? can that even happen with sea creatures? getting water stuck in their ears?_

“I am looking for someone,” the merman says at last. “My Mo`ira — I have traveled far for her.”

 _M o i r a,_ he thinks to himself, burning the sound of this foreign name into his head. “And… you think she’s here?”

“Yes!” Strength returns to the merman’s voice, and his eyes shine with a glimmer of hope. “I was told she could be found in these waters. Have you seen her? She is the most beautiful wahine hi’u i’a of the seas.”

“Wahine what?” he asks, his tongue clunking over those unfamiliar words.

“My people,” says the merman. “That is what we are called, and she is the most beautiful of them all. Have you seen her?”

He has no recollection of coming across another mercreature, man or woman, in his net. He’s certainly never seen another figure quite like the merman on shore, either. Black Rock was a small town; he’s been here long enough that he can recall most of the people who live here, and there certainly wasn’t anyone with features as alien as the merman’s. Surely, such a man or woman would stand out from the crowd—

 _A purple that stands out,_ he recalls with widening eyes, _An alien purple._

 _Nyma,_ he thinks, the girl with eyes an alien purple, the girl from the counter with sun-streaked hair and fair skin that could, perhaps, turn golden with little fins if she were a— if she truly were a—

“I think,” he starts slowly, sucking in a sudden breath as if he’s made an earth-shattering discovery, “I think I know who you’re looking for.”

The sea crashes with a large wave. The boat rocks wildly and he is soaked once more. His vision is filled with nothing but the merman, whose eyes are wide with shock and euphoric relief. “You must help me!” the merman cries, who has risen again from the sea and reaches for him. Then, the merman stops mid-reach, dripping water on his pants instead, and slowly, shakily, retracts back to the sea. “My apologies,” he says, cheeks aflame, “I do not mean to startle you.”

He feels the hard line of the boat’s starboard wall pressing into his back. He hasn’t realized he’d fallen back. Despite his reaction, his breathing remains slow and steady and his heart is calm, calmer than the sea; but it still hisses incessantly — _don’t let him get you!_

“It’s okay,” he says, and it isn’t a lie. “I’m— I need time. I’m not… really used to this.”

The merman stays pensively silent; an unwavering gaze stays focused on him, as if waiting for him to continue. There’s nothing more he wants to say, so he, too, stays silent. Finally, after a long stretch of wordless staring transpires between them, the merman speaks.

“Can you really find her?”

 _I think so,_ he starts to say. Starts to, but stops, because he doesn’t think that’s the right thing to say; that’s not the kind of answer he himself would want, if he were searching for someone the way a man lost at sea searches for land. The merman seems to have gone a long time on his search without any sign of this ‘Moira.’ He can read the longing in the merman’s heart clearly through his eyes; those were his eyes, once — he’d longed for someone just like this. That’s why he knows _I think so_ isn’t the right thing to say; he knows that won’t quench the thirst of yearning.

He thinks back to the phone he’d just bought, thinks carefully about how he’s going to word his message to Pidge (if he’s going to get her involved in this at all), thinks back to the counter at the corner store, where he’d run into Nyma for the first time, and thinks back again to the pretty smile, the pretty laugh she had for him when they met a second time. _He can do this,_ he thinks, thinking of the way he once was, years ago, surrounded by four walls in a black hole that tried to swallow him alive, _he can find her._ Warmth starts to flood his head; it’s coming straight from what’s thrumming in his heart, something he thought he’d lost for good long, long ago — confidence, and the more he looks at the hopeful ache in the merman’s eyes, the more he feels his heart burn with a fire he’s never felt so intensely before.

“I’ll find her,” he says, surprising himself with the amount of strength in his voice. “I’ll find her for you. I swear.”

The sun shines in the smile of gratitude that washes over the merman’s face. “I am La’ans Keawe Mi’kelain. I will not forget your kindness.” **(13)**

It takes a moment for him to find his tongue again. “I’m Keith,” he finally returns, finding it difficult to keep his voice from trembling as the merman’s eyes remain dutifully on his face. The sun is hot in the sky overhead, and he feels the heat of the earth through his face. “I, um… I like your tail.”

The merman laughs, leaning away to splash water at him with his tail-fin. He doesn’t mind this time; there’s no surging ire when he feels the ocean drench his clothes yet again, nor even when the merman comes closer to lean his arms on the edge of his boat. Humor lights the merman’s dark blue eyes as he grins, flashing all of his sharp teeth. “I like my tail, too.”

Suddenly, the boat rocks and he gets a face full of seawater.

“I think I like this far better,” the merman laughs, the sound ringing in his ears.

As he’s sputtering and wiping off his face, a wicked idea flits through his mind. In one motion, he leans over the boat, sticks his whole right hand into the water, and hurls an impressive wave toward the clueless merman. The warm curl of satisfaction in his chest upon hearing the ungodly squawk coming from the merman makes him do it again. He keeps going, even if the splashes he makes are pennies compared to the grand waves the merman creates.

They have their fun like this, the merman diving into the ocean and sneaking splashes back and forth while all he can do is dodge or try and dunk the merman’s head back into the water before he breaks the surface. Laughter and splashing soon become the sounds of the sea, and the heat of the sun and the coolness of the sea touches him in ways he’s never been touched before.

 _The water isn’t calm anymore,_ he thinks as he laughs with his whole body the way Lance laughs smiles with the entirety of the sea. His heart is calmer than the water, even as it shouts _don’t let him get you!_ the same way his mother used to when his father pretended to be a lion and growled and chased him around in their yard.

“You look happy, nani kāne,” he hears Lance say when he lies exhausted and defeated in his boat.

His cheeks are flushed and sore from smiling and his chest heaves from laughing so hard he forgot to breathe. Like this, he turns to Lance. “Yeah,” he pants out, and feels a wash of pride surging through him, because, for once, he can say that he’s happy and mean it.

Lance smiles back at him, and he feels his pride beat his heart like a drum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** Malcolm's curse refers to the psychologically battered state that Malcolm Melville, son of the writer Herman Melville, suffered through during his lifetime. 19th Century autopsy reports describes a "pistol shot wound" ultimately responsible for his death. Contemporary psychologists and literary-historians argue now that the evidence from the autopsy report describe a case of suicide.
> 
> During _E O Mai's_ original conception, Keith had a very dismal fate upon the story's conclusion. This line would have been a subtle foreshadowing of his untimely end. For more information, check out this [article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/799381).
> 
>  **(2)** The Everyday Food channel on YouTube [has a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsaTyAI2qxs) on this. 
> 
> **(3)** I used Google Maps [to find a bus route](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Santa+Monica+State+Beach,+Santa+Monica,+CA/Target,+West+Hollywood+Gateway,+7100+Santa+Monica+Blvd+%23201,+West+Hollywood,+CA+90046/@34.0829285,-118.3949708,13z/am=t/data=!3m1!5s0x80c2bf298d0c29af:0x8b9ce423df2f708b!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2a4da0a0646b5:0x8f7340becbb4c9b5!2m2!1d-118.4980901!2d34.0103338!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2bf29b903c643:0x890461661954b384!2m2!1d-118.3446342!2d34.0899117!2m2!6e4!8j1488025839!3e3!5i4) for Keith. Details about what he sees on his way to Target come from this route.
> 
>  **(4)** I got confused while searching up the route. If this is wrong, please let me know!
> 
>  **(5)** 他很帅, in Mandarin, is _"tā hěn shuài"_ , which means _"he's really handsome/good-looking"_. More info can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZpIA7UH8Rk).
> 
>  **(6)** Part of a shopping list, in Korean. Translations are as follows:  
>  계란 - eggs  
> 우유 - milk  
> 쌀 - rice  
> 당근 - carrots  
> 배추 - nappa/korean cabbage  
> 고추 가루 - red pepper powder
> 
>  **(7)** "Umma," "gimbap," and "appa" are Korean words written with the English alphabet. Translations are as follows:  
>  umma (엄마) - mom  
> gimbap (김밥) -- salt & sesame oiled rice with sauteed vegetables rolled in seaweed. More info [here](http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/kimbap).  
> appa (아빠) - dad
> 
>  **(8)** [Nissin](http://www.theramenrater.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2012_4_3_700_004.jpg), [Sapporo Ichiban](http://www.ramenplace.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/800x600/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/s/a/sapporo-ichiban-original-front.jpg%0A), and [Nong-Shim](https://wiki.geneseo.edu/download/attachments/77203389/Shinramyun.jpg?version=1&modificationDate=1329120576617&api=v2) are popular instant noodle brands. The first two are Japanese, and the third is Korean.
> 
>  **(9)** [You've probably heard about this item](http://clarabeau.tumblr.com/post/94127960982/ladies-i-am-holding-out-my-hand-do-you-trust).
> 
>  **(10)** Allura's dress was originally going to be [a patterned dress with sleeves](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e1/be/8d/e1be8d26ba27bacdd4af3f7950964268.jpg), but I decided that [a solid, ivory-colored dress](https://img.promgirl.com/_img/PGPRODUCTS/1476898/1000/ivory-dress-EM-ELB-2036-120-c.jpg%0A) with [a bright cardigan](http://shop.donneconceptstore.com/4774-thickbox_avena/silk-cropped-royal-blue-cardigan.jpg) would give her a stronger presence. Not featured in this description are her [heels](https://www.nordstromrack.com/shop/product/1168820?cm_mmc=feeds-_-adlucent-_-google-_-pla&utm_source=feeds&utm_medium=adlucent&utm_content=google&utm_campaign=pla&sid=545650&aid=%5BADL%5D%20%5BPLA%5D%20%5BShopping%5D%20-%20Categories%20-%20Non-Brand&kwid=productads-adid%5E93310059517-device%5Ec-plaid%5E186681314917-sku%5E9646043-adType%5EPLA&color=FLORAL%20MUL) and her [clutch](http://luxurylaunches.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/dolce-and-gabbana-clutch-8+-thumb-550x441.jpg). Her necklace can be found [here](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5f/ef/d4/5fefd41ed7fb8749112ade0e5c9525fd.jpg).
> 
>  **(11)** **Sen** nett G. **Dak** alov. Sendak.
> 
>  **(12)** The _"radiant gem lost at sea"_ refers to the ["Heart of the Ocean."](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/titanic-true-story-real-heart-ocean-necklace/)
> 
>  **(13)** There are a lot of vowels in Polynesian languages, so I tried to change "Lance McClain" to fit it. Keawe is an actual Polynesian name, which refers to the "royal house" established by the King, Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku, who ruled the island of Hawai'i during the 17th century. The name also carries a meaning that I found was similar to Lance's personality. I'm too lazy to write it here, so you can read it on [this site](http://www.allbabynames.net/keawe/) if you want.


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